APEC member economies, the world’s largest producers and consumers of energy, are advancing new measures to double the share of renewable energy in the region within 15 years to keep pace with rising demand and ease the environmental impact of economic development across the Asia-Pacific, The Gulf Intelligence reported.
Actions ranging from technical cooperation to facilitate solar photovoltaic rooftop installation to support for low carbon heating system development and renewable energy grid integration were taken forward during a just concluded week-long assembly of APEC energy officials in Port Moresby.
“Economic development and increasing consumption in emerging Asia-Pacific markets will intensify pressure on global energy supplies through the coming decades, even as large, newly accessible reserves come online,” said Nixon Duban, Petroleum and Energy Minister of Papua New Guinea, which began exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a new USD19 billion Exxon Mobile project earlier this year.
“The only way we are going to satisfy demand needed to keep our diverse economies moving is by improving the development and use of LNG and conventional fossil fuels while taking further steps to diversify the region’s energy mix,” Duban explained. “All of us in APEC want to see renewables play a larger role in production and consumption in the region and we are working closely to address cost and technical bandwidth issues to help make this happen.”
As APEC economies implement their ground-breaking commitment to reduce tariffs on 54 “environmental goods” to five percent or less by the end of 2015, improving the accessibility of products such as solar panels and wind turbines, emphasis is turning to the fostering of international standards and best practices that are vital to the mainstream application of renewable technologies.
