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Malta’s 30-year-old climate change initiative would never have gone ahead, according to its author, had he not been sat next to its main opponent on an eight-hour flight. “I had been trying to sit next to this man for six months but he would have nothinThe flight secret behind Malta's UN climate change initiative
Malta’s 30-year-old climate change initiative would never have gone ahead, according to its author, had he not been sat next to its main opponent on an eight-hour flight. “I had been trying to sit next to this man for six months but he would have nothing to do with me... when I found out he was in the airport VIP lounge, I made sure to get bumped up and then there was no escaping me,” David Attard told a University seminar yesterday. Prof. Attard’s role as the island’s adviser to the UN was so significant that Malta was subsequently one of only 12 countries to be invited to a secret meeting to draw up the rules. He recounted how Mostafa Tolba, an Egyptian scientist who at the time stood at the helm of the UN’s Environment Programme, had been staunchly against the Malta initiative. It took Prof. Attard the duration of a flight from New York City to Amsterdam to convince him otherwise. “Had I not, we wouldn’t have been able to press ahead. When we landed we were best of friends,” he said, adding that it was an ex-student who he happened to meet that day who had pointed Dr Tolba out to him at the airport. The gathering was held to celebrated 30 years since the island’s UN... Read more