The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Phiilip “Brave” Davis said yesterday the government has made a commitment to have a 60 megawatt solar power field by next year.

Mr Davis said at a press conference that by next year the government would be using a mix of fossil fuel and solar power, which he submits will reduce the country’s carbon footprint.

“There are plans to move away from fossil fuels, but unfortunately the experts predicted that its going to be very difficult for us to wean completely off of fossil fuels, but many steps in reducing our reliance on it will help,” he said.

Reducing reliance on fossil fuels was in the Progressive Liberal Party’s Blueprint for Change as well as a pledge to move the country towards 30 percent renewable energy by 2030.

The Prime Minister said he is taking this pledge very seriously as he announced that by the first part of next year there will be “at least a solar field that will provide at least 60 megs of electric power. So we’ll have a mix of fossil fuel and solar power, which will again prove to reducing our carbon footprint in New Providence”.

Teams have also been sent to the MICAL constituency, to make assessments on a pilot programme on retrofitting government buildings with solar panels with the aim of using this pilot as a guide to move all of the government buildings in the Family Islands to solar power within the next “two to three years”.

There are “no active” oil licences under review or consideration by the government either and the Prime Minister, admitting his involvement as a lawyer for several oil companies in the past, noted: “I have now identified what I will do in respect to the prospect of oil being in our jurisdiction.

“You would have heard me speak when the cry about drilling was in the air and there was much controversy over the fact of drilling. My response was always; don’t be concerned about drilling, be concerned about exploitation. Because drilling is only to discover whether or not you have oil.

“The fact that you have oil doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to extract the oil and with this new advent of being able to sell your carbon credits and under Article Six of the Paris Agreement we can have what they call additionality.”

He explained that additionality is not about exploiting natural resources that increase carbon emissions and/or preserving habitats that absorb carbon.

Additionality is a defining concept of carbon-offset projects. To qualify as a genuine carbon offset, the reductions achieved by a project need to be additional to what would have happened if the project had not been carried out.

If carbon credits are awarded to activities that would have happened anyway, emissions are allowed to rise without a corresponding cut elsewhere, therefore making the process meaningless.

So essentially the government is looking to receive carbon credits for oil it chose not to extract.

Mr Davis added: “So what I am now embarking upon is, from the information gathered from all of the seismic and data collection about the possibility or probability of oil deposits in our waters in our jurisdiction. Once I have all of that verified and instead of exploiting that, we could then put it on the market for sale on the premise that we will not exploit as long as we collect our carbon credits. So it’s saleable commodity now.”

Determining the full nature of the country’s oil deposits is the only way to ensure that carbon credits can be collected.

Sean Grazette, director of marketing for EZ Car Sales, also at yesterday’s press conference praised the government’s reduction of duty on electric cars to 10 percent for all vehicles under $70,000 and 25 percent over $70,000.

He added: “This will encourage businesses to now purchase bigger vehicles, electric trucks and hopefully electric jitneys.”

EZ Car Sales is “thankful” for the government taking this first step in assisting consumers to buy cleaner burning vehicles.