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.