Urgent action needed to tackle climate change

Climate Change has been on the tips of many tongues, far and wide. And although some still think it is all a sham, many now see it as the enemy at the gate. It is my belief that we are losing this fight, and I will even go a step further to say that Jamaica needs to become climate offensive and “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!”

The abstract idea of climate change means nothing, but the repercussions that follow are what truly make the case. In Jamaica, we have observed the amplified effects of more harmful weather patterns including an:

1. Increase in temperatures.

2. Increase in number of natural disasters.

3. Increase in variable rainfall.

It is relevant to remind people that prevention is better than cure, and the only way we can effectively fight climate change is through preventative measures like going green or, ‘doing di good things dem!’

Jamaica’s National Energy Policy 2009-2030 proposes a policy framework that includes strategies which take into consideration renewable energy at the consumer level, but only promotionally. This means that no specific institutional change will actually occur to bring about the needed use of renewable energy at that level.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION

The Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) reports that of Jamaica’s total final energy consumption, only 17 per cent is renewable, which ranks us 62nd in the world on the renewable scale. The point is that, although we have a legal framework available which provides for the use of alternative/renewable energy, Jamaica consistently fails to:

• Plan for renewable energy expansion.

• Incentivise regulatory support for renewable energy.

• Attribute financial and regulatory incentives.

• Create a mechanism for monitoring and pricing carbon emissions.

And of all these objectives we fail to achieve, planning for alternative or renewable energy expansion is paramount. As a small island developing state, this is the best option available – progress leading to prosperity. This is no time to ‘shadow ‘e brakes!’

Considering Denmark as the model, according to a World Economic Forum article published in April 2018, that nation generated 74 per cent of its energy from renewable sources in 2017, making it a world leader in renewable power. But it is not the country’s major energy providers that are driving this move. Rather, it is an increase in ‘energy citizens’, which are people who are decentralising their energy mix and installing smaller, renewable power projects that are supported by their governments and their legal frameworks.

n Steven Palmer is a 21-year-old third-year engineering student at The University of the West Indies.