Guyana cannot achieve 100% renewable power by 2025 – officials

Local climate change officials have admitted that Guyana’s international commitment to achieve 100% renewable power by 2025 was “ambitious” and with the current state of affairs, unlikely to happen.

“I believe, given the extent of research done over the last three years, it is clear that we cannot reach to the goal of 100% by 2025,” stated Head of the Office of Climate Change, Janelle Christian.

She was at the time addressing the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Policy Friday at the Public Buildings.

Christian noted that there are “so many things that need to be considered”, such as financial resources, infrastructure, capacity, policy and legislative changes, to accommodate 100% renewable power in the next seven years.

The commitment to become fully renewable was made by President David Granger at COP21 in Paris in 2016.

The Committee’s Chairperson, Gail Teixeira, was probing whether the government has made any progress to achieve this target.

Teixeira, a longstanding politician, expressed that Christian’s admission is the first from the government about the status of that international commitment and she urged that the official advise the government advisers.

“You should advise the advisers and politicians because in parliament, it is said [that the commitment is achievable]. It’s only because we are asking you to come before us, we are hearing there is a consideration for a review,” she noted.

Teixeira explained that with such an ambitious commitment, the government should have already made some progress towards becoming fully renewable.

She posited that given the unlikeliness of the commitment being met, the government should update the nation or perhaps revise the target.

“Let’s say we were 15% on alternative energy, have we now reached 30% or 50%? So we can say we may not make the 100%, but we can assure that by 2025 we can make 70%, 80% or 90%,” she expressed.

However, Shevonne Wood from the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) outlined that plans are in progress to establish small hydropower plants across the country in places like Hosororo, Moca Moca and Tumatumari.