The seventh Annual Caribbean Sustainable Energy Forum 2021 began here on Monday against the backdrop that sustainable development for the region whether utilising alternative or renewable energy must now be at the forefront of the process of transformation of Caribbean economies.
The forum is part of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Energy Month is being observed under the theme “From Dependence to Resilience: Fuelling Our Recovery with Sustainable Energy”.
Delivering the feature address at the event, Barbados’ Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Minister, Kerrie Symmonds, said this transformation would only occur through a revolution of the region’s energy sector.
‘Our small open and vulnerable economies are particularly sensitive to the disequilibrium caused by the impact of rising global temperatures. This coupled with our geographic disposition of being exposed to sudden and disastrous…shocks including natural disasters places us all on the front line in the fight against climate change.”
Symmonds said equally significant perhaps is the fact that the region is also vulnerable “to the wavering international financial commitments for the mitigation and adaptation strategies which the world must adopt”
He said these strategies are necessary for the region’s protection and “for the very way of life to which we have become accustomed”
He said at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) held in Glasgow, the Barbados prime Minister Mia Mottley, was given a platform to speak on behalf of small countries and those most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis.
Symmonds said Mottley, who was originally scheduled to deliver the feature address at the opening ceremony here, was able to highlight some of the major issues affecting small island developing states (SIDS).
He told the energy conference here of Barbados’ plans to further develop its energy sector bearing in mind the effects on climate change and noted that the failure of the international community to provide financing for mitigation and adaptation will be measures in countries like Barbados and other regional countries “in terms of life and in terms of livelihoods.
Symmonds said he wanted to impress upon delegates attending the Energy Forum the timeliness of this initiative, recalling that at the last gathering in Belize in 2018 “the conversation at the time focussed on a need for not only clean energy but also turned on good governance and on sound regulations.
“Barbados shortly thereafter in 2019 committed to a full transformation of our energy sector by the year 2030. We acknowledged at that time that regulations and good government would be critical. But in that same year climate finance internationally available declined by a sum of 25 per cent.
“So though we continue to speak of sustainable energy with great conviction…we say so knowing full well that our existence, in fact our very survival requires nothing less than draconian do or die approaches in order to achieve this target”.
Symmonds said the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) energy programme has been leading “from the front with their continuous and unstinting effort to carter specifically to the betterment of all the countries that it represents.
“We are guided as a region by the principles of the CARICOM Energy policy which was developed to coordinate, expedite the increased use of renewable energy and energy deficiency,” he said, adding that this promotes among other things a coordinated approach to exploring and establishing an institutional framework for leveraging financial mechanisms for the development of viable energy sources.
But Symmonds said that the region must also be cognisant that of the commitments in the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Roadmap and Strategy which proposes a set of aggregated regional targets for electrify generation from renewable energy sources in the amount of 47 per cent by the year 2027.
“We must therefore urge that each member state now explore and exploit the available renewable options unique to each of our own countries. I will be the first to acknowledge that it has been difficult in the recent times to align the needs of the many so as to achieve the objectives of the CARICOM Energy Policy with respect to the leveraging of financing”.
The Barbados minister said it is in this regard he believes that concerted approaches, such as the high level meeting on energy finance between CARICOM and its international development partners, which sought to bring together the region as a lobbying body and present a portfolio of priority initiatives, programmes projects and activities all on the basis of a CARICOM wide proposal can do much to raise international awareness of the needs of the region.
“This approach, led by CARICOM, saw the region compiling a proposal of US$25 million for technical assistance in order to address existing barriers to the uptake of renewable energy and then investment package of US$5.1 billion for regional level and entry level investments intended to explore and exploit cost effective indigenous sources of renewable energy options and to diversify our fuel supply matrix, improve the efficiency in which energy is produced, delivered and consumed and to modernise our electricity grids and other energy infrastructure”.
But Symmonds said the region must also remember that ‘while there is a plethora of project plans currently existing in this region there is a large disconnect between the sustainable energy projects being conceptualised and the volume of untapped capital which is available”.
Source-CMC
