Environmental Sustainability in the Eu

Environmental Sustainability in the EU 

Kelsey Till

ECON 220- H2WW

April 16th, 2018

Tricia Wiseman

Environmental Sustainability in the EU

Overview of the environmental sustainability

        Environmental sustainability is defined as avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. While many people tend to focus on the technological developments needed for economic growth, the environmental impact is just as critical to our economy. Malta, a small island country located in the Central Mediterranean is a country that could benefit from environmental growth.  The country of Malta is one that depends greatly on trades of both goods and services as they hold very little domestic energy sources, have little fresh water sources and produce less than a ¼ of their own food (The World Factbook: MALTA, 2018). The Republic of Malta utilizes the main sea-level water table as their main resource for water, but without permanent streams or lakes, it has been hard to supply steady clean water to its people. Recently this has been addressed to include multiple, intensive reverse-osmosis desalination plants around the island that remove the salt from the water to make it drinkable (Busuttil 2018).

Externalities associated with non-renewable energy use

        There are many consequences that are associated with non-renewable energy use, they can have both a positive and negative impact on the economy of that given area.

Malta’s Renewable energy sources and their future

        “The Maltese economy faces major constraints because of its small domestic market, and it depends on other countries for many imported goods” (Busuttil 2018). Due to the major lack of resources available for use on the small island of Malta, almost all of their energy sources are imported from other countries in Europe. One of their only natural resources on the island is limestone, which is utilized for construction use. In addition, Malta has attempted to explore for off shore oil however, no significant oil reserves have been sound since the 1990s when the digging began (Busuttil 2018). Currently, the only energy source that Malta has adopted for use is that of solar power, however this still only accounts for about 5% of their energy from renewable sources as the other 95% is imported (Energy Malta, 2017). Currently rooftop photovoltaics are the main source of renewable energy in Malta, as there is little land available to utilize for solar power panels (Malta's energy transition, 2017). The future outlook for Malta is looking up, as they may be able to hit their 2020 goal of using more solar energy sources to reduce their dependency on other countries for energy source imports.