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To amplify the voices of the vulnerable, the marginalized and the excluded. |
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Panos Caribbean is reproducing here an article that was first published on Petre Williams-Raynor's blog, Green Seeds.
Up to last June, energy was a subject to which I directed little of my attention unless and until it came up in the context of the climate change challenge facing the Caribbean and — of course — on the monthly occasion of my electricity bill appearing in the mail.
CSEF 2017 delegates during a working group session on Monday, January 23.
Things have changed as my education has deepened — fuelled by an ever-ballooning interest and the development imperative with which I must contend as, inter alia, country head of a NGO, Panos Caribbean, which has, in particular, vulnerable and marginalised people as our focus.
Read more ...Panos Caribbean is reproducing here an article first published by Caribbean News Service.
NASSAU, The Bahamas, Jan 23 2017 – An official of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has reiterated a statement made by its president in 2014, which points to the need to move away from imported fossil fuels.
“Unless we can reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels, and unless we can substantially reduce energy costs, we will not succeed in improving our competitiveness and reducing our vulnerability to external shocks,” Head of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the CDB, Tessa Williams-Robertson said.
Speaking here at the opening of the fifth Caribbean Sustainable Energy Forum (CSEF), Mrs. Williams-Robertson said the meeting plays an important role in facilitating dialogue on sustainable energy development; creating a space for sharing good practices, ideas and lessons learned; and in driving decision-making, policy and action across the Caribbean.
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MARRAKECH, Morocco — Dr. James Fletcher, a well-respected figure in global climate circles and former head of the CARICOM Task Force on Sustainable Development, has come out to bat for the Adaptation Fund, whose future under the Paris Agreement is being hotly contested.
“I think the Adaptation Fund should sit under the Paris Agreement. You see, the Adaptation Fund is very important because the Adaptation Fund is specifically for adaptation. The Green Climate Fund deals with both mitigation and adaptation and if you listen to some of the pledges that have been made, there is still a heavy bias towards mitigation,” he said, from the international climate talks being held here.
“For us in the Caribbean, mitigation is important because mitigation will allow us to transform our economies, give us the energy security that we need. But as far as greenhouse gases are concerned, mitigation means nothing for the Caribbean. We contribute what, one quarter of one per cent of greenhouse gases?” he argued.
“So whilst from a moral perspective and also from an economic transformation perspective we are quite interested in mitigation and we want the mitigation funds to flow — particularly those mitigation funds that will give us access to grant or concessional financing, so some of our initiatives in geo-thermal and others can take place — the biggest issue for us is adaptation,” he said.
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