Do, 15. Jan 2009, 17:26
The Hidden Truth of Albania’s Deadly Environment
| 15 January 2009 | By Xhemal Mato in Tirana
Politicians are concealing the real costs of industrial projects that are irreparably degrading the country’s environment.
In Albania the true state of the environment is seldom made public; meanwhile pollution and degradation are inside and around, wreaking havoc with the nation’s health as well as harming the economy and disfiguring politics.
In the last few years, the Albanian government has been undertaking several grandiose projects to do with energy and cement plants. All come from foreign companies and aim to satisfy foreign markets, while imposing costs that are exchanged for often unclear gains.
Relying on its status as a developing country under the Kyoto Protocol, the government has recently promoted a series of carbon-heavy power generation facilities.
The history of the Durres coal-fired thermo-power plant, instigated by the Albanian Ministry of Economy, Trade and Energy, and now sought through a concessionary agreement by the Italian energy company Enel, illustrates the way that a country in transition chooses to deal with the legacy of an obsolete energy strategy, a chaotic political culture and dominant foreign investors.
Environmental groups estimate that if our government moves forward with the plant project proposed by Enel, its carbon-fired thermal-power plants will increase carbon emissions in Albanian by between 6 to 7 million tons every year, doubling the emissions that the country currently produces.
One ton of carbon emissions today in the EU costs between 24 to 60 euro, while in Sweden, for every ton of carbon emitted into the air, companies pay a tax of 150 euro, revenue that is reinvested in green energy projects that aim to avert the effects of global warming, exasperated by green house gases.
Although Albania is a signatory to the Kyoto protocol, in none of the agreements that Albania has signed with the Italian energy giant is it specified who will bare the burden of the environmental costs produced by Enel’s plants.
It is very likely and possibly something that we should keep in mind that the new Kyoto agreement will impose quotas for carbon emissions in certain industries. If these quotas are trespassed, then hefty fines will follow.
As a result the energy sector in a given country will be allowed to emit a certain amount of carbon in the atmosphere. We all should be asking ourselves how much of this space for carbon emissions are we giving away to Italy?
According to the Institute for Environmental Studies, Albania stands to lose every year around 250-to-300 million euro in carbon tax revenues alone, while according to the government most of the electricity produced by Enel will be exported in Italy.
The government justifies these large investments as a way to escape the energy crisis. They say it will boost gross domestic product, GDP, while helping to curb the country’s rampant unemployment.
However, GDP is blind to environmental costs, and does not give us a measurement for the quality of life. The index does not measure the destruction of natural habitats, or the endangerment of forests or underground waters.
Even when, at times, part of the ecological truth in Albania comes out, it is promptly instrumentalized for political reasons and not for the good of the community.
A good illustration of this is the debate about air pollution in the capital, Tirana.
The Ministry of Environment says pollution comes about as a result of particles released in the air by the booming construction industry in the city, and because the municipality has failed to clean up throughways.
Meanwhile, the municipality of Tirana, headed by the opposition leader Edi Rama, blames toxic gases emitted by old cars, which he says should be controlled by the environment ministry. Thus, even environmental polluters in this country have political colours.
Significantly, every scientific institution in Albania is government financed and there are no independent institutions to measure the quality of the environment. Because the state has a virtual monopoly in monitoring the quality of environment, these political colours have become a toxic mixture.
When local non-governmental organizations secure small grants to conduct some measurements of their own, which is seldom, they are routinely attacked by officials as conmen, anti-globalists and neo-communists and so are often pressured to keep quiet.
The fact is that the legitimacy over monitoring of the environmental situation is in the government’s hands and politics ensures the needs of our society are not served.
In the last two decades, countless studies have been carried out to measure the number of deaths caused by pollution in Tirana, but the truth remains hidden.
A few days ago, the head of the oncology department in Tirana’s Mother Theresa University Hospital produced some alarming figures, which went unnoticed, however.
Year on year, he has seen cancer patients in his hospital wing grow by 20 per cent. A lot of politicians may think this alarming growth rate of cancer cases is not their concern, but they do not need to look very far to see the effects. In the last few years alone, seven deputies in parliament have succumbed to tumors, which the World Health Organization blames mainly on environmental pollution.
Although the European Union gave Albania the necessary equipment to measure air pollution two years ago, the equipment is still gathering dust in government offices, where often bureaucrats don’t even know how to use them.
Instead of conducting the measurements needed to determine the real state of air pollution in the capital, the Ministry holds press conferences proclaiming the successes of its policies. The municipality does the same, pointing to its work to increase green spaces.
While statements fly about, left and right, vital information about the causes of death and diseases is lost amid the political bickering.
Although at first sight such politics looks harmless, in reality it’s criminal, because it kills, while its victims become just another point in a statistical curve.
Xhemal Mato is the executive director of Eko-Levizja, an umbrella group for Albanian environmental NGOs. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.