Malta vs. Switzerland

This week comparison will be between Malta and Switzerland – two completely different countries both in mentality and development.

The island and less developed country is Malta and it has to deal with some serious issues in the area of air quality and quality control. Issues regarding air quality can be spilt in two major parts: the amount of pollution that comes from agriculture and traffic (the anthropogenic input) and the sea salt and dust from Sahara (the natural input). Even though the agriculture sector is not important in this country’s economy, in the rural areas where the farming is sometimes the only income the air pollution reaches the level of danger. Moreover, farming influences landscape quality, biodiversity and soil and water quality. However, the transboundary pollution that affects the Mediterranean space must not be ignored. This is why the Global Air Pollution Crossroads over the Mediterranean article by Lelieveld et. all. shows how the transboundary pollution for CO2 is spilt in: western Europe pollution from France, Germany and Italy and eastern pollution from Poland, Ukraine and Russia; so basically the major concern in Malta is air quality. Like in other countries that have not a really important pollutant industry, in Malta the traffic is responsible for exceeding the CO2 , PM10 and 2.5 ,O3 , C6H6, NO2 and SO2 emissions. The PM 10 and 2.5 issues is one of the environmental problems that has serious impact on humans’ health by a decrease in lung function, general ill, asthma and in some cases even death.

Source: http://www.mepa.org.mt/ter08-air

According to Malta Environment & Planning Authority, the EU standard set limit values for O3, the 120μg/m³ 8-hourly running average value for human health protection is not to be exceeded more than 25 times per year (6.8% of days measured); and also the 180μg/m³ hourly information threshold for human health protection. However, the map above shows that especially in the northern part, Malta is dealing with O3 concentration levels > 100 μg/m³, concentrations that are most likely to be around or above EU MPC. Along with PM 10 and 2.5 pollution, the O3 pollution has the same transboundary origin.

An interesting fact is that because of its small size the amount of pollution is very low compared to other countries from Europe and this is illustrated by how climate change could affect Malta due its position. 

So what should be done? Firstly, it is important to highlight that Maltese Government has adopted some measures to prevent the negative effects of pollution by drawing up some projects. In my opinion the most important are:  Malta’s Air QualityPlan and  the National Allocation Plan for Malta 2008 – 2012 .

Some of the other measures proposed  by the Government are restriction in importation of cars that are more polluting, reduction of conventional energy use and an increase in usage of alternative technologies. Proposals were issued by Government in 2008, and implementation begun in 2010. Other measures can be find here. 

In contrast, Switzerland is a more developed country and has more influence in the European international context. The environmental problems are mostly the ones that are common in all countries: air pollution, water pollution, land use etc. , and each one of them affects the population’s heath as well.

It is known that air pollution causes respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and also premature deaths and has a major impact on vegetation.

According to the EEA country report, Switzerland’s air quality has improved in the last 25 years and that means reductions in Pm 10 and 2.5, NOx, NMVOC, NH3 and CO2 emissions. This is obviously the result of using new technologies that emit fewer pollutants and a result of this decrease will be a decrease in premature mortality from particulate matter and of course the diseases that can occur after exposure to this kind of pollution. Is expected that should the current measures be carried on in the future, the number of exceedances will drop until 2020.

Some of the international agreements that are signed by Switzerland are: The Arctic Treaty , The Kyoto Protocol, UNECE Geneva Convention onLong-range Transboundary Air Pollution  and the national law about air quality are: Federal Act on the Protection of the Environment or Ordinance on air protection.

If in the past the Fheon phenomenon was quite a delicate problem for Switzerland, now climate change, acid rain and pollution in general are the real issues in this country. Basically one of the obvious impacts is the glaciers retreat in Alps, where there are more than 3000 km²  of glaciers that are quickly melting. On the Swiss glacier monitoring network there are maps and lists that can be analyzed and the speed of the retreat and which one of the glaciers are melting faster than the others can be calculated.

I hope that this video will illustrate better how serious and current is the retreat of glaciers:   

  

Furthermore, on the FederalOffice of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss there are reports that show that during the last 50 years it was recorded an increase of 1.8°C in the Switzerland’s mean temperature and an increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation events in all seasons. Besides this, some projections indicate that is more likely for the summer heat waves and droughts to become longer and more frequent.