PM gives strong hint of missed all-green energy goal

The Prime Minister on Thursday gave Government’s first hint that it is likely to miss its target of becoming a totally fossil-fuel-free economy by 2030, suggesting the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic is to blame.

In the presence of visiting President Delegate of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) Alok Sharma, she told journalists that Government may have to review its goal.

Mottley said: “We have set of course the aspirational target of a fossil-free economy by 2030. We recognize that we can get there with a reduction of 70 per cent of what we want. We recognize that we are going to have to work further and in 2025 see whether we can hold to that 2030 target of 100 per cent fossil fuel-free or whether we will have to adjust it thereafter again.

“But at the very least we believe that we need to reduce the emissions from 7.7 tonnes per year per person to 2.3 tonnes as a recognition of our contribution from this small rock in this global community. We believe that we can have an unconditional commitment to a fossil-fuel-free electricity sector by 2030. We also believe we can do the same with respect to transport. We believe we will have to go back and review with respect to other aspects related to industrial development and agriculture but I am confident that within the next three years, both technical assistance as well as our own reengineering of some of the ways in which we do things that we will therefore be able to expand that ambition the next time we look at it in 2025.”

The Prime Minister said much of the work to be done to facilitate a green energy economy by 2030 had to be abandoned because of COVID-19.

She said: “There is certainly no doubt that all of the various exogenous shocks have left us more beleaguered economically and financially than we would have liked, but that does not mean that we are going to allow them to keep us down. The reality is that we are making a case for blended resources, more grant resources, and more concessional resources, recognizing that vulnerability ought to be one of the serious criteria used if not a multi-dimensional vulnerability index to help us access the money that we need to build the defenses to be resilient against these increased storms, increased droughts, increased bleaching, all of these things come and cost money,” Mottley maintained.

“And therefore if we have less money to spend because we are spending it on rebuilding houses or we are spending it as we are doing this year on a significant expansion of access to water resources, or cleaning up sargassum or cleaning up ash, then, of course, we have less money to put forward to do the restoring or reengineering of our housing stock to ensure that the next time an Elsa comes or a Janet comes that we will be able to withstand those types of hurricanes or the next time we have a serious drought we have strategic water resources that are affordable and accessible to every household and to every business.”

Sharma, who is briefly visiting Barbados ahead of the conference which will be held in Scotland’s second city Glasgow in October, said he was satisfied with the ambition shown by Government in tackling climate change.

He said Barbados’ all-renewable energy goal was “absolutely vital”.

“Not only in terms of reducing the emissions, but quite frankly in terms of the leadership it displays and it challenges other countries, particularly the biggest, to raise their own ambitions and to help keep the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach and keep alive the goal of limiting the average rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees,” Sharma said.

He promised that COP 26 “would deliver for the countries most vulnerable to climate change”.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)