Authorities must launch a massive energy conservation programme relating to diverse steps in multiple fields
KARACHI: During the recent summit on climate change in Paris, Pakistan made its case by claiming that it is among the countries worst hit by climate change, citing growing heat, floods, melting glaciers and other reasons. A case in point is the deadly heatwave that hit Karachi last Ramazan. Pakistan is also fighting an energy crisis. There is a deficit of electricity and gas for private and industrial consumers that is making life difficult and slowing down the pace of growth of the economy. But what is the Pakistani solution to the problem? Instead of launching a massive energy conservation programme by improving transmission networks, replacing high-energy consumption machinery in industry and devices in private households by low-consumption ones, the government is doing nothing of that sort. The international trend is to replace thermal power and the use of coal by renewable energy sources like wind, sun and hydel, but Pakistan plans to expand the use of coal and, even worse, lignite for power production. Out of the 10 new coal power plants planned in the country, nine depend on imported coal. Half of them are located near Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan. Can you imagine what the impact of the increased air and water pollution will be on the population?
Many of the country’s industrialists see no urgency in combating the impending disaster that climate change can prove to be and are not considering any alternative options. They insist on continuing with business as usual and are seeking to build more coal-based power plants, citing that India burns more tonnes of coal than Pakistan. What are they trying to tell us? The argument seems to be that ‘yes, we are bad but others are worse’. That there is no alternative to coal is a plain lie. There are other options but companies opt for the cheapest one to make the most profit — and they seem to be able to do this in the absence of a clear environmental policy by our government that should be thwarting such plans rather than promoting them or letting them be formulated in the first place.
Pakistan has a long coastline, umpteen possibilities and spaces for establishing wind parks. Seventy per cent of our hydel resource remains untapped. Pakistan can also readily make use of solar power. Yes, these options need a higher investment and may require more time to implement but the cheapest and fastest solutions at our disposal are definitely not the best. Until solar and wind options are not fully implemented, we can bridge our needs with gas and oil. However, we need to start cutting transmission losses and energy theft on a war footing. That will not only provide relief for our resource base, but for our climate as well.
Ali Ashraf Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2015.
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