Food for Thought

PS: Can renewable energy technologies really assist Samoa?

Samoa in 2009 may explore for geo-thermal energy, but it will trial wood gasification utilizing different biomass, a project that will impinge on our farming communities that lack both export markets and access to clean energy.

To augment this initiative, cocogen options are also being considered thanks to IUCN’s implementation agency skills with their $USD1.3M grant for Energy Efficiency in the transport sector.

Two additional projects, once unrelated to renewable energy (RE), but now very much becoming an integral component, are the agro-forestry and sustainable forest management projects, worth in excess of $USD6M.

We can now commence selecting biofuel cropping practices, but we lack the expertise and experience. However, FAO are kindly assisting thanks to a grant from the Global Environment Facility Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (GEF-PAS).

However, Samoa’s private sector are being further marginalized by rising energy costs, rising food prices and an increasing inability to compete in export markets. Value-adding locally and import replacement strategies are now in place and renewable energy technology transfer is the key to this new development paradigm.

Samoa is striving not only for greater sustainability, but also addressing its survivability in a world that it is now finding more difficult to survive in. Samoa is one of the most vulnerable nations on the planet to Climate Change and the Government of Samoa is now possibly the most prepared of all the Pacific Island Countries to combat climate change impacts.

However, these attempts are in vain as carbon and methane emissions continue to rise globally. To us in the Pacific, this is ethically unacceptable.

Our first concerted effort in 2009 is to secure in excess of $USD10M to address climate change mitigation and adaptation issues, and we now have these funds secured: we just need the renewable energy technology transferred to Samoa in the most sustainable manner possible.

However, there is a dearth of expertise in this area of proven renewable energy pilot projects within the Pacific. Why? We need more consultants stationed in the Pacific that have the skills to assess renewable energy needs, calculate technical assistance required, source and purchase equipments, install and train the operators, and even maintain these technologies so that our projects remain sustainable.

The challenge is to make these renewable energy projects boost the value-added potentials within the Pacific so that our socio-economic issues can be addressed quickly.

However, RE technologies continue to be trialed on ‘remote atolls’ before they are proven in our own capital cities. Let’s not make this mistake again.

We in the Pacific need proven working models/pilots, trained technicians and some efforts made to take a cross-sectoral approach and get the food security issues addressed in the Pacific, sooner rather than later.