Polluting Countries Meet to Discuss Faster GHG Control

Filed in archive on October 17, 2006

A meeting held by the World Bank which involved the energy and environment ministers from the 20 biggest polluting countries, came out with one resolution: the urgency of climate change and the issue of the availability of technology must be addressed.

Time is running out to avoid the 2 degree Celsius average rise in global temperature, and all governments must participate in mitigating it. According to World Bank Energy Director Jamal Saghir, climate change mitigation is not just about property rights but is all about developing capacity and know-how. He added that renewable energy generation must be linked with affordability to make it happen.

According to Saghir

What you do not want, and I have seen it in Benin, is people giving a PV (solar photo-voltaic power generator) and then when it breaks down no one know how to fix it so it is not used.

With two-thirds of the growth in energy demand in the next 25 years coming from developing countries, renewable energy must be increased to play a significant role and supplant the energy sourced from coal and oil, the main culprits of climate change.

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