Following the threat of a repeat of the devastating 2012 flooding in the country, geographers have called on the authorities to urgently evacuate people living on flood plains to reduce possible loss of lives, should the great flood occur, as alerted by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Correspondent Innocent Onoh brings the details in this report on ways of saving lives during flood disasters.
The recent streak of record-breaking temperatures has shown that climate change is not waiting for the world to take decisive action.
But the adoption of the Paris Agreement was a clear signal that the world is ready to take climate change seriously. 175 countries signed and 15 of these ratified the climate deal during the signing ceremony.
Now there is every indication the agreement could enter into force this year. Many countries, led by the two biggest emitters, China and the United States, have signaled their intent to ratify by the end of 2016, leaving just four countries and 1.72% of global emissions needed for it to become official.
There can be no doubt that the window of opportunity to limit global warming to below 1.5℃, a key target of the 2015 Paris agreement, is closing fast. But there are encouraging signs around the world that this can still be done, even if there is still a very long way to go. Here are three of the most positive developments that will help the world reach its target.
Green energy is getting cheaper
The costs of climate mitigation have decreased drastically. According to NREL’s Transparent Costs Database, wind energy costs in the US are now on a par with coal-fired power.
In May 2016 the price of photovoltaic (PV) energy fell to less than three US cents a kilowatt at an auction in Dubai. Even in not-so-sunny Germany, solar energy costs have been decreasing steadily: in a recent auction December 2015, prices fell to eight euro cents per kilowatt hour.
We can expect further cost decreases in the coming years. According to a recent report, by the end of the decade, the cost of onshore wind should decrease by a quarter, off-shore wind by a third and photovoltaics by almost two-thirds. By the mid-2020s, solar PV and onshore wind should cost 5 or 6 US cents per kilowatt hour on average. This is significantly below the cost of energy from nuclear and coal.
As a result of decreasing costs and additional benefits, investment in renewables exploded in 2015 despite low oil prices. Meanwhile, renewable energy investment reached a record $286 billion, generating 152 gigawatts of new capacity. This is more than the combined installed capacity from all sources for the whole African continent.
Carbon dioxide emissions have stopped rising
In 2014 and 2015, the CO₂ emissions from the energy sector stalled despite the global economy growing by 3%. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2014, emissions increased by less than 0.2% and by only 0.03% last year.
BP’s estimates for both years were slightly higher, (0.5% in 2014 and 0.1% in 2015), but that was a significant change of trend compared to the average annual emission growth of around 2.6% over the past decade.
The major factor in this flattening trend was a fall in emissions of the two biggest emitters: China and the United States. In China, despite an increase in power consumption by 3%, power generation from fossil fuels decreased by 2%. This led emissions to fall by 1.5% last year. In the United States, emissions decreased by 2% despite healthy economic growth.
Meanwhile, developing countries are taking advantage of the significant fall in the costs of renewables. While India’s emissions grew by over 5% last year, the second most populous country in the world has embarked on one of the fastest renewable expansion programmes anywhere on the planet.
At the same time, India is taking steps to curb coal investments. The choice between renewables and coal in India might be the most important factor when it comes to global efforts to reduce emissions.
Green jobs are good for the economy
Every major transition is accompanied by fears of job losses. But the positive economic impacts of new technologies are given less attention. In 2014, more than 7.7 million people worked in the renewables sector, excluding large hydropower plants. A third of these jobs were in the photovoltaic sector, and an additional one million were employed in wind power – technologies which barely existed two decades ago.
Another report, shows that doubling the share of renewables in the energy mix by 2030 would triple the number of jobs in the sector and increase global GDP by 1.1%. That’s the equivalent to US $1.3 trillion. In 2016, India plans to roll out 30 million solar irrigation pumps, which would have significant economic and sustainable development benefits for farmers, saving US$3 billion per year on subsidies.
The funds required for this transition could be partly covered by savings from removing fossil fuel subsidies. The IMF has found that elimination of post-tax subsidies in 2015 would have increased government revenues by US$2.9 trillion and significantly reduced environmental and social impacts of fossil fuels.
In May 2016, G7 leaders committed to eliminate “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” by 2025. The G20 is also under pressure to agree on a timetable for phasing out subsidies.
Time for leadership
The ingredients for transforming energy systems and decarbonising the economy are already there. We are deploying more technologies that can peak emissions and accelerate their decrease.
To speed up this transformation, governments must adopt policies that ensure investments in renewable energy are secure and provide clear signposts for everyone participating in the process of decarbonisation.
Political leadership now is fundamental to prevent a slide-back to coal, and to stand up to vested interests, while providing finance and technology to the regions that need it most.
Courtesy: Namanews
President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed a former commissioner in Lagos State, Wale Edun, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ogoni clean-up project.
The 12-member BoT was inaugurated last Thursday by Mr. President, alongside a 13-member Governing Council for the clean-up.
Mr. Edun was Commissioner for Finance in Lagos when the leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, was governor of the state.
Ibrahim Jibril, the Minister of State for Environment; Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of Finance; and Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources/NNPC chairman are also members of the BoT.
Renowned environmentalist and activist, Nnimmo Bassey, is also a member of the BoT. He was picked to represent non-governmental organisations on the board.
Other trustees are: Peter Medee and Bebe Okpabi, representing Ogoni stakeholders; Nicholas Terraz, Insula Massimo and Osagie Okunbor, representing the multinationals being Shell Petroleum Development Company, Agip and Total; and, Mike Emuh, the National chairman of Host Communities of Nigeria Producing Oil and Gas (HOSCOM), representing other communities in the Niger Delta.
A slot has been reserved for a yet-to-be named United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) observer, while the Secretary and HYPREP (Hydro-Carbon Pollution Restoration Project) Legal Adviser is to be appointed by the Governing Council.
Chaired by Environment Minister, Amina Mohammed, the 13-member Governing Council comprises: Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources/NNPC chairman; Udo Udoma, Minister of Budget and Planning; Usani Usani, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs; Major General Babangida Monguro (Rtd), National Security Adviser; Nisima Ekere, Managing Director (designate), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC); and, Osagie Okunbor, Managing Director, Shell Petroleum and Development Company (SPDC).
Others are Anyakwee Nsirimovu (IHRHL), representing non-governmental organisations; Roselyn Konya (a commissioner in River State), representing nine oil producing states; Pyagbara Legborsi, Ben Naneen, Batam Ndegwe and Kammy Ngelala, who are representatives of Ogoni Stakeholders; Timi Agari and Pamela Asiri, who are representatives of other Niger Delta communities; and, a slot for a yet-to-be named UNEP observer.
The history of the Olympic Games is one of chasing impossible dreams and stretching the limits of human ambition. Thus, it was fitting that, beneath the glitz and glamour, the Samba and Rio’s Carnival-like atmosphere, this year’s Opening Ceremony that held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Friday, 5 August 2016 showcased what has been described as the most impossible sounding dream of all – Africa’s Great Green Wall.
Featured in the Rio Olympics Creative Director Fernando Meirelles’ film on global reforestation efforts, the Great Green Wall struck a chord as a what appears to be a generation-defining initiative aiming to grow an 8000km wall of vegetation across the entire width of Africa, against all odds.
The aim: to restore vast swathes of degraded land in a region called the Sahel and in the process provide food, jobs and a reason to stay for the millions of people living on the frontline of climate change that may be forced to migrate.
Once complete, the Wall will be three times the length of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. More importantly, it is expected to promote peace and strengthen resilience in a region long devastated by drought, war and famine.
The Sahel region of Africa is believed to be one of the world’s most impoverished – a key reason being the degradation of enormous tracts of fertile land, which form the basis of people’s livelihoods there. Persistent drought, food insecurity, and conflicts over dwindling natural resources are some of the many consequences, according to observers, adding that continued inaction means an estimated 60 million people could migrate to Europe from Africa’s degraded areas by 2030.
Meirelles’ film, which features footage from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s (UNCCD) Virtual Reality experience unveiled at last year’s Paris Climate Summit, provides a stark warning of the need to restore natural resources, like land.
The progress made since the initiative started a decade ago shows that land restoration efforts on a mass scale are both possible and offer hope. Senegal has already planted 12 million trees, Ethiopia has restored 15 million hectares of degraded land and Nigeria has created 20,000 jobs in rural areas.
“The Great Green Wall is about far more than just growing trees. It is a mosaic of interventions weaving across the Sahel region that is helping to build community resilience and provide economic opportunity. Already, it is feeding hungry families and malnourished children, putting people back to work and growing peace and security to help communities thrive once more. Most crucially, it provides young people with a genuine alternative to migrating from their communities,” says Monique Barbut, head of the UNCCD.
During last year’s Paris Climate Change Conference, world leaders pledged a further $4 billion to the initiative over the next five years. For a poor region with hardly any resources to spare, this raises hopes of moving the initiative closer to its ambition of restoring 50 million hectares of currently degraded land, and sequestering 250 million tonnes of carbon by 2030.
The Great Green Wall is a collaborative effort that transcends geographical, political and cultural divides, and is uniting people across borders on an unprecedented scale.
“This is a bold ambition that chimes with the spirit of solidarity enshrined in the Olympic dream. It is a global symbol to celebrate our common humanity in divisive and troubling times,” Barbut adds.
The Great Green Wall is an African-led initiative with an epic ambition: to restore the productivity of degraded lands across the Sahara and the Sahel and transform millions of lives. Under the leadership of the African Union Commission, it brings together African countries and international partners that include the European Union (EU), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UNCCD and World Bank Group (WBG).
Intense rainfall and rising water levels that may likely result to dangerous floods have instigated the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to advise communities along the River Niger to be evacuated to safer places.
Director General (DG) of NEMA, Muhammad Sani Sidi, in a statement issued by Sani Datti of the Media and Publicity Unit of the Agency on Saturday, warned that the agency had received alerts of the impending flood from available information by the Republic of Niger that the present water level in the river has reached a point that may result in the flood that could be compared with the unfortunate experience of 2012.
According to the NEMA boss, “Niger Basin Authority (NBA) notified Nigeria that rainy season, which started in the Middle Niger (Burkina Faso and Niger Republic) in June, 2016, has led to a gradual rise of the level of River Niger in Niamey, Niger Republic. This high level of water in Niger Republic is already spreading to Benin Republic, and invariably, to Nigeria.”
He explained that the level of water in all the hydrological monitoring stations across the country, as at Friday, 5th August, 2016, had already exceeded the corresponding values at that time, “which is an alarming situation that requires the prompt and coordinated action of all governments and stakeholders,” adding that ”if the heavy rainfall continues in intensity and duration within these regions of the River Niger, it is imminent that flood situation similar to that of year 2012, may occur.”
The DG called on all stakeholders to take necessary actions in line with their various mandates. “The states and local government are to ensure observance with the threat in order to avert imminent loss of lives and properties that might certainly arise in the event of flood.”
He identified the states along the River Niger belts as being the most vulnerable as well as those along its major tributaries that include Benue River belts, the confluence states and downstream to the Atlantic Coast.
The Agency’s Zonal and Operation offices, he said, have been instructed to continue with advocacy visits to the state governments and also urged the state to utilise the flood vulnerability maps given to them earlier by NEMA to identify safer ground for temporary shelters in time of evacuation as well as reviewing all their contingency plans.
By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The Mile 12 Market is reputed to be the largest perishable food market in West Africa. The market is characterised by a beehive of activities at the various food section.
However, in May, the usual hustling and bustling that typifies the perishable food market was missing. Most of the traders were seen hanging around with few produce displayed for sale.
Alhaji Sheu Musa, a seller of tomatoes at the market was haranguing a customer over her “ridiculous” pricing of the produce.
“It is not my fault that tomatoes are expensive in the market. In the last few days, I hardly made profit from the sale of the produce because pests have destroyed tomato farms and made tomato scare and expensive.
“I am tired. I have spent all day explaining why tomato prices are so high to numerous customers,” he exclaimed.
Tomato prices across Nigeria have skyrocketed since April, causing consternation across the country. Most families now find it difficult to prepare stew or cook other delicacies with fresh tomatoes.
The rising cost makes a huge difference to family budgets and to the farmers who rely on steady sales for their income.
Hotels and restaurants, in particular, face a nightmare as the crisis has also shot up the price of tomato paste.
In the first few months of the year, a basket of tomato was sold as low as N1,500 but, during the scarcity, the price of a basket spiked to as high as N40,000.
However, the ingenuity of Nigerians is commendable as many homemakers that are unable to afford the fresh tomato switched to the use of blended carrots, dried tomatoes and palm nut juice for sauce.
According to an agriculturist, the scarcity of tomatoes was caused by the pest “Tuta Absoluta”, locally named “Tomato Ebola”, that destroyed virtually all the tomato farms in the northern part of the country.
Tuta Absoluta is the specie of moth in the scientific family of Gelechiidae known by the common names tomato leafminer and South American tomato moth.
The insect originated from South America around 1912 and has spread to other parts of the world. Reports reveals that the insect came to Africa through the Republic of Niger.
Alhaji Haruna Mohammed, Chairman, Mile 12 Market Perishable Foods Association, notes that the pest invasion of tomato farms is due to the prolonged dry season.
He said, “The insects come out and are very active during extreme sunshine. The insects always attack in dry season and harmattan periods.
“This is not the first time the insects are disturbing tomato farms but this year’s is severe. The insects are not active during rainy season.
“Tomato buyers and sellers are not happy with this situation. It has affected us seriously.”
According to him, traders are buying tomatoes from Cameroon and Ghana to make up until they start harvesting the new ones planted to replace those ravaged by insects.
“It costs between N500,000 and N600,000 to bring tomatoes to Lagos from Cameroon and Ghana.
“This is the reason tomatoes are scarce and costly when seen in the market. It is a nightmare and tomato traders are praying for good harvest so that the nightmare will be over.”
According to a climatologist, Dr Ibidun Adelekan, heat enhances the growth of some pests, a situation she says threatens the country’s quest for food sufficiency and industrialisation.
Tomato scarcity became a major concern as the Dangote Tomato Processing plant in Kano State, that started operation in March suspended production in May due to unavailability of fresh tomatoes which constitutes its raw material.
Governor Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna State, on May 23, declared a state of emergency in the tomato sector of the state, saying that within a month, 12 local government areas of the state that produce tomatoes have lost 80 per cent of its tomatoes harvest.
In three local government areas, about 200 farmers lost N1 billion worth of tomatoes.
The 450,000 metric tons per annum tomato processing plant of Erisco Foods Ltd in Lagos was also affected by the fresh tomato scarcity leading the manufacturer to resort to using dried tomatoes for production of its tomato paste.
Chief Eric Umeofia, Chief Executive Officer, Erisco Foods said, “Heat wave caused by effects of climate change has destroyed my company’s tomato farms in the North.
“Reduced access to fresh tomatoes for production of tomato paste has affected our production capacity, as we are presently producing below capacity.”
Dr Anthony Anuforom, Director-General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), says extreme weather conditions such as drought, flood and heat waves constitutes serious threat to global food security.
He asserts that the threat is as a result of the high vulnerability of agricultural produce to weather variability.
The NiMet boss said that the impact of extreme weather on food security in Nigeria could be managed through climate change adaptation policies and appropriate economic framework.
He notes that weather forecast and climate predictions, such as NiMet’s Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP), were useful tools for reducing the impact of extreme weather condition.
Experts said that a combination of informative, adaptive, behavioural and innovative technological strategies would be required to transform the nation’s agricultural sector for the purpose of ensuring food security.
They emphasised that the government should boost mechanised farming, strengthen the nation’s Agricultural Research Institutes with adequate funding to improve their capacity to produce crop varieties that matures quickly and are heat, drought and flood resistant.
The experts added that government should also improve the ratio of agricultural extension workers to farmers in the country to enhance food production.
By Oluwafunke Ishola
The Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) on Friday announced a new partnership to collaborate on knowledge, sharing, technical expertise and engagement on some key areas such as sustainable supply of agricultural commodities, business models and services provision to smallholders, innovations in financing mechanisms to provide affordable credit to smallholders, investment models that help build alternative livelihoods for smallholders, and forest management and restoration that account for the needs of smallholders.
The partnership was announced at the 2016 Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit (APRS) in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. It was formalised in June 2016 under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by SNV’s Chief Executive Officer, Allert van den Ham, and CIFOR’s Director-General, Peter Holmgren.
With a common outlook of landscape-based strategies associated with sustainable agricultural supply and improved smallholders’ livelihoods, which deliver improved benefits for climate change adaptation and mitigation and economic development, CIFOR and SNV have agreed to build on each other’s strengths to further their respective missions.
The partnership and coordination are being led by Richard McNally, SNV Global Coordinator for Climate Change, and Pablo Pacheco, CIFOR Principal Scientist and Team Leader for Value Chains, Finance and Investments.
“SNV is very excited to become a strategic partner with CIFOR. This will bring more research and scientific rigor into our more complex programs exploring the relationships between smallholder agriculture, forest protection and landscape management,” McNally said.
“CIFOR sees significant value in this partnership as part of our efforts to link our research to actions in the ground that work for forests, economic development and rural livelihoods. SNV has developed an important capacity that will contribute to link our research to practice in ways that are meaningful to different local realities,” Pacheco said.
SNV is a not-for-profit development organization with a focus on poverty alleviation and sustainable development. CIFOR is a non-profit, scientific facility that conducts research on the most pressing challenges of forest and landscape management. Both have a long-term presence across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
CIFOR is a non-profit, global facility dedicated to advancing human well-being, environmental conservation and equity.
To ensure full implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Abuja, the Nigerian federal capital city, inaugurated the Governing Council and the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Trust Fund for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
Buhari, while speaking at a brief ceremony in the Presidential Villa, noted that the project, which will take two decades to implement, is starting five years after the UNEP report.
The next five years, he said, would address emergency response measures and remediation, while the subsequent years would aim to restore the ecosystems in the Niger Delta.
He charged the communities to ensure security for the project and prevent recontamination of Ogoniland when completed.
He said: “Today marks another milestone in the commitment that this administration has made in ensuring the implementation of the UNEP Report on Ogoniland and other impacted sites.
“This is a very important endeavour that has direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of our brothers and sisters whose environments have been severely degraded by years of unchecked pollution from oil exploration activities.
“It is exactly five years today, on the 4th of August 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) submitted an extensive Report on its environmental assessment of Ogoniland. That report, which was commissioned by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, did not only document the problems that existed, but also contained recommendations on how they can be addressed, both in the short term and in the long term.
“Five years on, the project is yet to properly take off. It would appear to have experienced a series of false starts, while the local communities continue to suffer from the problem, which has existed long before the Report. This all adds to the picture described in the UNEP Report as “a landscape characterised by a lack of trust, paralysis and blame.”
Thanking the Council and BoT for accepting to serve on the project, he said since the flag-off of the project two months ago, considerable effort had been expended to create a robust mechanism for implementing the project in the long term.
According to him, the Governing Council and Board of Trustees jointly form an essential part of the governance framework.
“The governance framework we lay today, following extensive consultations, will form the bedrock for sustainability for years to come,” the President added.
Courtesy: The Nation
Despite the announcement of the supposed take-off of the Ogoniland clean-up exercise and a $10 million take-off grant in 2015, the institutional framework is still not in place to give hope to the Ogoni people that anything tangibe will come out of the process.
This was the submission of Dr Godwin Ojo, executive director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) on Thursday (04 August, 2016) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in an address at an Advocacy Meeting on Monitoring Agenda for the Implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report on Clean-up of Ogoniland.
Themed: “Monitoring Agenda for the Implementation of the UNEP report cleanup of Ogoniland”, the daylong forum discussed new developments on the implementation of the report, including the announcement and inauguration of a 13-member Governing Council and Board of Trustees to oversee the take-off of the actual clean-up exercise by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The participants declared that a state of emergency should be declared in Ogoniland and the entire Niger Delta in view of the mammoth environmental challenges inflicted on the region.
Additionally, they want the clean-up of Ogoniland to commence immediately without further delay, even as they underlined the need for a legal framework and supportive Act for the implementation of the UNEP report. The exercise, they noted, should include health audit of the people in view of declining life expectancy among the people of the region.
Ojo lamented that, five years after the release of the UNEP Assessment report, Ogoniland still remains an emblem of pollution and ecocide in the Niger Delta region.
Indeed, the gathering, which comprised representatives of Niger Delta communities, civil soceity, lawyers, community campaigners, academia and the media, observed that though government has shown a positive attitude towards implementing the UNEP report by inaugurating a Governing Council and Board of Trustees, the absence of a gazette or law to ensure the process is institutionalised and sustained beyond the Buhari administration is not in place.
According to them, there is still legitimate outrage among Ogoni on the inclusion of the same polluting oil companies in the Governing Council and Board of Trustees of the UNEP report implementation. They describe Shell sitting on the Governing Council and steering Board set up by the government to oversee the clean-up as an anomaly.
Shell, the participants allege, is orchestrating a strategy of hijacking the clean-up process in its attempts to evade justice and undermining the clean-up process.
“Since the publicised approval of the $10 million take-off grant which is a paltry sum for start-up compared to the UNEP recommended $1 billion for clean-up of Ogoniland made by President Buhari in August 2015, there has been no information in the public on how the fund will be expended, or how oil companies are to fund the clean-up exercise,” the forum declared, stressing that there is still no work plan or timelines for deliverables in the UNEP report implementation process.
They observed that civil society representation in the composition of the Governing Council and Board of Trustees in the UNEP report implementation is virtually nil and would make monitoring of implementation near absent.
Despite the current administration mantra of diversification from a monoculture economy solely reliant on fossil fuels, it still relies heavily on fossil fuel to the detriment of proven alternatives that are clean and sustainable.
The gathering further recommended thus:
Creating a sustainable future is the responsibility of all countries, and that includes allocating a greater share of the world’s energy mix to renewables. A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Renewable Energy Prospects: Dominican Republic, finds the Dominican Republic could by 2030 increase its share of modern renewable energy from 9% to 27%, and its share of renewable electricity generation from 12 to 44%, by adopting a series of recommendations.
Situated on the tropical island of Hispaniola, in the heart of Caribbean, the Dominican Republic’s shining sun and gentle winds, provides its 10 million inhabitants with rich opportunities for renewable energy generation.
The country’s power sector presents both a challenge and a great opportunity. Last year, the Dominican Republic pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels – an ambitious target that it hopes to achieve in part by increasing the power sector’s share of renewable energy to 25% by 2025. However, the government’s current policies are not enough. Despite tax incentives, feed-in tariffs, and a rural electrification programme, the country is only on track to a 21% renewable energy mix by that year.
“The Dominican Republic can become one of the leading countries in the Caribbean region for renewable energy deployment,” said Dolf Gielen, Director of IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre. “If leaders act now to implement more renewables, the country can reduce air pollution, enhance energy security, boost the economy, and play a leading role in the global fight against climate change.”
Spending and then saving
By annually investing $566 million into renewable energy from now to 2030, the country could save itself a fortune. IRENA estimates that up to $5.4 billion could be saved each year until 2030 – a combination of about $1.2 billion in energy system savings, and $1.1-4.3 billion in savings from reduced externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants from traditional energy sources.
In the report, IRENA recommends the Dominican Republic sets clear and consistent renewable energy targets, designs appropriate incentives and market mechanisms, and conducts transmission planning and grid expansion work. In particular, on-shore wind power and solar photovoltaics are areas of potential growth, and the report recommends the construction of 45 wind farms, and the expansion of both on-grid and off-grid solar.
“Many island nations face similar challenges in the energy sector, including energy security and energy access,” said Gielen. “The measures outlined in this report can thus be helpful far beyond the Dominican Republic.” The report is the latest addition to IRENA’s REmap programme – an effort to create a renewable energy roadmap that shows how to realistically double the global share of renewable energy share by 2030. Covering 40 countries that represent 80% of global energy use, REmap collaborates with country experts and aggregates the results to create a global picture on the state of renewable energy.
