Energy summit: Zardari urges global alliance to harness wind, solar power

President says Pakistan’s current energy capacity will have to double within a decade to meet targets.

ABU DHABI: President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday called for a global partnership on renewable energy – particularly solar and wind resources – to ensure the availability of affordable energy to the common man.

In a key-note address at the opening session of the four-day World Future Energy Summit held in the UAE, Zardari said the production of energy and its availability have become the driving force of economies.

The president noted that the UAE has demonstrated to the world that trade and commerce, innovation and invention, can make a desert bloom.

About the development of renewable energy, he said attempts have been made in the past to produce cleaner fuels but the cost to produce that energy was sometimes more than the energy it produced. He added that our job is not to dwell about things that did not work in the past but rather innovate for the future.

Zardari said that if the funds used in wars were used in energy development, the earth’s environmental crisis would have been long solved.”If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago,” he said.

With higher prices and growing scarcity of fossil fuel, solar power is finally emerging as a viable and efficient source of energy, the president said.

He also spoke about wind power as more efficient and effective and hoped that it may hold the key to energy independence and environmental renewal in Sindh and Balochistan.

“Pakistan’s demographics are the driving force of our needs,” he said and added that the economy needs to grow at an annual rate of eight per cent to sustain current standards of living.

Zardari added that Pakistan’s current energy capacity – 20,000 MWs – will have to double within a decade to meet economic targets.

The government has stepped up and accepted responsibility and accountability, having been a victim of one environmental disaster after another, the president said.

“We have turned increasingly to initiatives in water and energy conservation, high efficiency irrigation systems, the powering of water systems and houses by solar and wind energy.”

Earlier, Zardari and UAE’s Prime Minister Shaikh Muhammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in a meeting reaffirmed the resolve to further consolidate their deep-rooted brotherly relationship for the mutual interest of their people.

The two leaders also discussed peace and security in the region, stressing the need for joint efforts to improve the situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2011.