PRIME Minister, Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips has called for CARICOM member states to receive improved and prioritised access to public, grant-based and investment funding to support a “CARICOM energy revolution”.
The Prime Minister, who is the Chairperson of the CARICOM Council on Trade and Economic Development (COTED), made his call while delivering remarks at a virtual high-level meeting with CARICOM ministers responsible for energy, heads of international financial institutions, bilateral development partners and the private sector.
“We are of the firm view that a front-loaded and fast-tracked investment surge is urgently needed to achieve, within the next five to ten years, what may have otherwise taken 30 years, because time is of the essence.”

He said that the region requires an average of US$5.3B in private and public investment for its push towards energy security.
Guyana on its own, he said, requires US$1.1B for a range of energy projects which are expected to add 230 megawatts of renewable generation capacity to the country’s electricity mix. These projects include the modernisation of the electricity grid, hydropower generation, and the inclusion of rooftop solar photovoltaic power.
“This would simultaneously improve our energy security, reduce energy pricing, and reduce carbon emissions from the power sector, among other things,” the PM told his COTED colleagues at the meeting.

Energy security is essential to the region, according to the Senior Government official, since energy issues are inextricably linked to climate change.
“The ‘CARICOM energy revolution’ will not only allow CARICOM countries to play the leadership role that we’ve assumed in global climate mitigation efforts, recognising that, collectively, we contribute less than 0.2 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, but also facilitate our ability to implement some of the measures that are necessary for our climate adaptation,” he said, adding that each time there is a natural disaster or climate-related challenge, CARICOM member states suffer.
“These externalities have consistently eroded the modest economic gains made by some, and in many instances exacerbates our inability to attract the right quantity and quality of financing for investments,” he noted.

Prime Minister Phillips also noted that it is imperative that the region employs modern infrastructure and techniques that are capable of effectively supporting the requirements for, and national aspirations toward, sustainable development.
“Countries can recover better from the various exogenous shocks, including those that are caused by climate events and the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said, “through an accelerated clean-energy transition that, inter alia, delivers long-term economic growth and job creation.”
The Prime Minister said that he is eagerly awaiting the expressions of interest on “our proposal, that will emerge from this meeting, and, more so, the collective actions that will follow in the years to come. Our citizens continue to depend on us for solutions. Let us not let them down, on this occasion.”
Among those present at the meeting were Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, and Secretary-General of CARICOM, Irwin LaRocque.