‘Clean energy promises environmental security’

Islamabad : The Global Climate Risk Index has placed Pakistan on the fifth spot on the list of countries most vulnerable to climate change in its annual report for 2020. The use of fossil fuels which includes coal, gas and fuel oil on the other hand is detrimental for the country’s environmental future and therefore, it is imperative for the country to move to renewable energy sooner rather than later, wherein a failure in doing so will further aggravate the existing food, water and energy security related threats.

This the crux of the thoughts shared by experts during the first yearly meeting of the Institute of Policy Studies Steering Committee on Energy, Water and Climate Change here on Tuesday.

The meeting was chaired by former water and power secretary Mirza Hamid Hasan and addressed by former water and power secretary Ashfaq Mahmood, former member (energy) of the Planning Commission Syed Akhtar Ali, energy lawyer Ameena Sohail, IPS executive president Khalid Rahman, and IPS energy and water programme's team members Naila Saleh, Sarah and Wali Farooqi.

Terming the use of clean energy as the only way forward for ensuring an environmentally secured future for Pakistan, the speakers said roadblocks in the way of wider use of clean energy should be addressed timely since it is not only the most efficient, feasible, reliable and safest mean of energy generation, but simultaneously would contribute to reducing reliance on imported fuels and harnessing the immense indigenous renewable energy resources available in Pakistan.

They said Pakistan was already fifth most vulnerable country to climate change and couldn't afford to continue the existing trajectory and that the excessive rains in many parts of the country including Karachi were only a recent highlight of the alarming threats posed to the country - emphasizing urgent need for action to address the issue on priority basis.

According to the speakers, the reason for not benefitting from this immense renewable energy potential in Pakistan lies in flexibility constraints and lack of commitment on behalf of relevant authorities, who neither had technical expertise nor the intent to make this shift. It is more convenient for the grid operators to manage the grid dominated by base load power plants regardless of its detrimental impacts on environment, and hence they intend to continue the business as usual.

The energy experts said the on-ground steps currently taken by the government were not only contradictory to the targets set in the 2019 policy for ‘Alternative and Renewable Energy’, but also poorly contrasted to the global and regional renewable energy advancement.

They said Pakistan’s reliance on coal fired power plants remain skewed toward imported fuels and coal whose cost was nearly at par with IPPs and had significantly contributed to the swelling of circular debt - now reaching trillions from billions.

The speakers complained that there was no planning or proper data existent to address the circular debt issue.

They added that the regulators in the country were not playing their due role properly and many departments concerned were even reluctant to share the data with each other and therefore, the claiming creditors demanded unjustifiable bills, which were then accepted by the government without any analysis or forensic audit.

The speakers also highlighted that the generation capacity in the country had already surpassed the country’s needs - outpacing the transmission resulting in unserved energy and idled generation capacity.

They said the state institutions like NTDC did not have enough research resources indigenously to assess the generation or distribution capacity of the country and it did outsourced the task in 2018 but the work took so long in its completion that the indicators and scenario used in preparing that report had become outdated.