Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) President, Dr. Gene Leon, says countries in the region must accelerate their renewable energy transition regimes in response to oil shocks that threaten to create untenable situations for their respective economies.
The exacting demands of Caribbean economies arising out of the fact that imported petroleum products provide around 80% of the energy needs of the Bank’s nineteen borrowing member countries, now cost the region around US$7 billion annually. This circumstance, the CDB President said, has not been helped by the ongoing hostilities between Russia and the Ukraine and the further knock-on effect on oil prices globally. “Because of the pervasiveness of energy in everything you do … you are at the mercy of volatility in the price of that product,” Dr. Leon is quoted as saying in an interview on the sidelines of a Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum held in Miami.
The CDB President wants the region to create “a properly diversified mix that is affordable … and that we can generate with adequate control to provide (energy) security.” According to Dr. Leon, the Caribbean finds itself at a considerable competitive disadvantage vis a vis its trading partners since they must pay three to four times more than developed countries for imported fuel. According to Dr. Leon, while the region needs to install 320 megawatts of new, renewable power annually to overcome the prevailing deficit, only a mere 25 megawatts has been installed over the past nine years.
And as part of an envisaged response to the energy dilemma, the CDB is reportedly advocating the installation of climate-resilient rooftops designed to generate electricity as well as withstand extreme weather events in 75% of the homes in the region by 2035. While going forward, CARICOM countries may well see a reduction in their energy costs arising out of Guyana’s oil bonanza, likely intra-regional discourses that could lead to reduced fuel prices across the Caribbean still appear to be some distance away.
