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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
The Assistant
Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Albert
Ramdin, joined ministers and high-level authorities on energy in the
Caribbean in Miami today to address energy and climate challenges in
preparation
for a meeting of ministers in 2015 under the umbrella of the Energy and
Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA).
The OAS Assistant Secretary General opened the discussion stressing how
the shift toward sustainable energy is critical. “We cannot escape the
fact that renewable energy has very high upfront costs and at the moment
many of our countries are facing a very serious
debt challenge,” said Ambassador Ramdin. The OAS official noted that
“we have difficulties striking that balance between investing in the
future and dealing with our day-to-day problems; this is a major issue
for policy makers in the region.”
For his part, the Minister of Public Services, Information,
Broadcasting, Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology of
Saint Lucia, James Fletcher said “we need to shift to an energy
paradigm that is more sustainable.” Minister Fletcher also addressed
capacity building and strategic partnerships, explaining that “this
energy sector is new, and we do not have the same capacity in-house to
be able to respond to and deal with the challenges.” “Energy is now the
investment frontier,” he added.
The Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mines of Jamaica,
Phillip Paulwell, who chaired the open ministerial debate, said he was
impressed with the wide array of ECPA activities over the past five
years. “I wasn’t aware of all areas that ECPA has been
involved with. As we look forward to the Ministerial in Mexico, each
sub-region has peculiar issues that we want to isolate in this
pre-meeting,” said Minister Paulwell, concluding “there is no future for
us if the status quo remains.”
The Executive Secretary for Integral Development of the OAS, Sherry
Tross, declared that “timing is important; there are so many
convergences and processes going on that will be affected by how we look
at and how we propose to really handle this issue of energy
efficiency and renewable energy, energy security and energy
sustainability going forward.” “It really behooves us to take advantage
of this moment of convergence to capture the political will that can
drive the agenda going forward,” said Secretary Tross.
The meeting included discussions of the policy implications of energy
trends in the Caribbean, energy and climate goals of the attending
member states, and visions and goals for the 2015 ministerial meeting,
among other issues.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.
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