BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC—Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley urged Caribbean countries to cooperate more to achieve energy transition in the region.
Mottley said quite frankly, while none of us individually may be able to sustain attention, “we have an obligation to recognize that if we were to pool the investment, that we would be in a better position to command the investment and the technology necessary to allow the region to do a serious transition.”
Addressing the opening of the three-day Caribbean High-Level Forum on managing the energy transition, she said she has asked the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank to take the lead in auditing the region’s renewable energy capacity “because we first must know what we have if we are to know what the possibilities of action with what we have are.”
Mottley said that the Caribbean is faced with complex challenges, noting, for example, that when Hurricane Beryl can hit countries at the beginning of the season and then continue, as was the case with Grenada, to be hit again as recently as two weeks ago with the unexpected floods.
“You begin to understand that the capacity to plan is really being threatened, and that our snapshot frame for how we plan may not necessarily be able to remain as it was in terms of annual reviews, but that we now live in a world which truly has become instantaneous in almost every respect. “
She said restructuring everything is required, and without energy, the capacity for economic growth will simply not exist.
“Without energy, the capacity for citizen security will be compromised, and next week, we meet with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to be able to address this most nexus issue of citizen security.
“So it is not a throwing comment on my part. But what is the reality of energy transition in the region? And what is the reality of energy transition in the region? Environmentally, there are issues at the regulatory level.”
“…quite frankly, if you have limited experience because of limited options concerning how often people come before you, then you are unlikely to be able to develop the experience in as quick a time as we need to be able to manage a transition.”
She told the forum, which is a joint initiative of the Barbados government and the IMF, that while Caribbean countries are signatories to the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that has within it the premise of functional cooperation, “and yet on this most challenging and complex issue of regulation of energy and energy, we have limited or no cooperation.
“We in Barbados have been struggling over the last four years with a regulatory framework that has not necessarily met the needs of the country,” she said, noting that, in fact, “it has compromised, in some instances, our ability to reach safely on our goal of net zero by 2035.
“I firmly believe, as I said in the past and I think I said it on the last occasion…that the region needs to step up to the plate on the complex issues of regulation, ensuring that the limited capacity that we have can be utilized to the maximum concerning the benefit of all countries. “
She said that apart from regulation, there is the issue of procurement, with almost every country facing the reality that their orders are too small, including Guyana, the fastest-growing country in the world, and deservedly so at this stage.
“But the reality is that our orders are simply too small to command attention. Yet, the simple task of pooled procurement seems to elude us, even though during COVID, we have the example of the African Medical Supplies Platform that made available to us in the region, at a critical time, the opportunity to pool our procurement.”
She said that such cooperation led to the region having the financing available so that a country as small as St. Kitts-Nevis, with 38,000 people, could command prices or have access to prices that a country like Nigeria, with over 200 million, could access.
“That is purely through a legal agreement and the political will to create. We need to have more pooled procurement. ” Mottley said the investment was also issued.
“Many of us are talking about different opportunities. Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and I suspect St. Lucia have geothermal opportunities. They’ve struggled to bring these investments to reality for a long time.
“In Guyana and Suriname, you can use hydroelectric power, among other things. We’ve struggled to bring these investments to fruition for a long time. In Barbados and Grenada and along the other islands, we have the capacity not just for Jamaica for solar but for wind. We’ve been struggling to bring these to fruition for some time.”
Mottley, an attorney, says the facts speak for themselves, and if ever there was a time for pooled investment, it is in renewable energy.
“And it is at a time when the world has become consumed with how it will access clean energy,” she said, adding that the reality shows how critical these issues are to the world’s geopolitics to resolve them.
“And quite frankly, while none of us individually can sustain attention, I acknowledge that Guyana and Suriname have the best opportunities as they do on the continent to maintain that kind of attention, but even they will be compromised.
“We must recognize that if we pool the investment, we would be better positioned to command the investment and the technology necessary to allow the region to transition thoughtfully.
“And what does it mean? It means, quite simply, that instead of meeting a few times a year and talking about other matters, we now add to the scope of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas the issue of energy, particularly renewable energy”.
“And I truly believe that if we, over the next few months, can do that, then we can begin to see the possibility of real change and transformation in this region, as well as protecting ourselves and building the resilience necessary to overcome the climate crisis.”
Mottley says she hopes the forum can, in some small way, stimulate the interest among individual countries, first, the cooperation, and then, two, to recognize that “we are always stronger when we move together.
“And in this world, where smallness is not to be, how to put it, smallness will give us agility, but in this world, where the rules of the international order are being questioned in many respects, then, more than ever, we need solidarity, and we need common action with common purpose,” she added.
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