Malta to take part in car free day on 22 September after absence of few years

A Parliamentary Secretariat for Tourism, Environment and Culture statement appealed to the Maltese public “to contribute for a better environment with less vehicle emissions” on 22 September 2010, when Global Car Free Day will be celebrated.

The Environment Parliamentary Secretariat has appealed to all Government employees in particular, as well as to the general public, so that on that day “they use other transport means which are not private vehicles”

They also called on all those who were entering Valletta and Floriana to use public transport, to pool cars as much as possible so that more than one person uses the same car, and using alternative transport means like a bike to work.

The Environment Parliamentary Secretariat has also appalled for more use of the park and ride facility on car free day, as well as “walking for all those who do not have a lot of distance from their workplace”.

“These measures, and others, will undoubtedly contribute for the reduction of carbon emissions. And to live in a better environment,” the Environment Parliamentary Secretariat insisted.

In Malta there were currently 301,605 licensed private vehicles. This was “one of the highest concentrations of vehicles as a percentage of the population in the world,” they claimed.

This also meant that in Malta there were around seven vehicles for every ten persons.

The average age of vehicles in Malta had recently improved, even though there were still a third of all vehicles that were older than 10 years, while another 41% were aged between 6 and ten years.

The transport sector contributed to 17.5% of all national greenhouse gas emissions. This came only second to electricity generation, which ranked first in carbon emissions.