As part of its role to stimulate a wide-ranging public debate on matters of importance, The Today Public Policy Institute will be making a presentation on ‘Climate Change: The Global Challenge and an Action Plan for Malta’, to be held on Thursday 22nd May at 18.00 hrs at the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise, Exchange Building, Republic Street, Valletta. The talk is open to the public and admission is free of charge.

 

The speakers will be Michael Zammit Cutajar, who is Malta’s Ambassador on Climate Change, and Martin Scicluna, who is the Director General of the think-tank. The talk will be in two parts. First, Michael Zammit Cutajar will speak about the demanding challenges presented by global warming and climate change. He will address the problems, the challenges, the international actions needed and Malta’s involvement in the climate change negotiations. Then Martin Scicluna will take up the challenge as it affects Malta. He will describe how climate change might affect Malta, the challenges this will present us with, and then go on to propose an action plan (on water, energy, food, health, tourism, the built environment and mass migration) to prepare to meet them.

As Malta begins belatedly to confront the stark challenges of climate change, this will be a talk which will serve to highlight the key issues which lie ahead and the need for policy-makers to begin to grapple with possible solutions to ensure that Malta is as well prepared as it can be to mitigate the effects.

 

The public policy think tank, The Today Public Policy Institute, was set up last summer. It is an independent and impartial think-tank focussing specifically on public policies for the purpose of improving those policies or creating viable alternatives. It sponsors or initiates research on specific problems and facilitates a public debate among experts in those fields in pursuit of its goal to advise on any aspect of future planning and strategy affecting Malta. It is autonomous, not for profit, non-governmental and is not affiliated to any political party or movement. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have given it their unqualified support.

It consists of a Board of up to 15 individuals from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, and a Director General who organises the Institute’s work and chairs its Board meetings. The Institute has just published its first report on ‘The Environmental Deficit: the Reform of MEPA and the other Regulatory Authorities’.