ISLAMABAD: Former State Minister for Petroleum Division Senator Musadik Masood Malik has said that Pakistan needs to manage energy transition according to local economic realities, where responsibility is paramount which should not be belligerent to the West.
Malik said this while speaking at an event organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) to have a consultative session with parliamentarians and leadership of different political parties to mull over the country’s challenges and opportunities to shift over to clean energy for a sustainable future in the prevailing testing times of economic turmoil.
He said the country’s local energy resources and gas production were declining and its precious foreign exchange was burdened with the heavy import bills of oil and gas.
In the middle of these economically-unsuitable conditions, there is an “elite capture” in the energy sector that consumes one-third of the total gas produced for manufacturing of fertilizer, whereas, the decision was made to provide subsidised fertilizer to the farmers.
Malik underlined that the cheapest energy produced from gas is diverted to fertilizer companies through the manoeuvring of the elite capture which diverts the highly-expensive electricity tariff to the poor who are voiceless.
He highlighted that such deals were done through legal contracts that paved the way for litigation embedded in it through a capability deficit which was structured in the system.
He said the country had pledged to ambitious targets such as capping coal power plants, shift to energy mix, and phasing out of coal power project but during the Ukraine-Russia War, the Western countries who brokered such global agreements for so-called just energy transition reverted to coal mining and power generation through the dirty fuel.
The country was left empty-handed, in the lurch to manage its energy needs with limited resources and spiking up fuel prices, he added.
He said Pakistan’s coal reserves worth $6.3 trillion could be utilised but it would incur environmental impacts, whereas, the country needed to create a strategic position like the Middle East managing the energy transition on its own terms. He said the country could obtain hydrogen-producing technology in lieu of a ban on its coal usage.
Senator Engineer Rukhsana Zuberi of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPPP), speaking on the occasion, said there should be a legal restriction on the attorney general to not appear in the cases of such public or private entities usurping public rights through tainted use of power agreements.
Moreover, the parliamentarians should also not be the legal advisors of such public or private entities that are damaging the environment, public wellbeing, and national exchequer, she added.
Former SAPM Malik Amin Aslam said the country had submitted an important document of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which was designed after looking deep into solutions for renewable energy solutions available for the country’s energy mix shift.
He said those commitments were soft and could not incur penalties but were subject to global checks on it. He added the country was one of the lowest GHG emitters but its emissions were rising and it could be declined below business as usual trajectory from its own resources and it could further reduce it 35 percent more if it got a climate finance of $100 billion.
“The Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Plantation Project if continues till 2030 then it can reduce 500 metric tons of carbon emissions per year emitted annually by trees and can make the country carbon neutral by 2030,” Malik added.
SDPI Deputy Executive Director Dr Shafqat Munir, in his remarks, said the climate crisis was racing at an unprecedented pace, whereas, the natural disasters due to carbon emissions demand the world to phase out fossil fuels from human consumption cycle and replace it with eco-friendly solutions of renewables. He said the prevailing dilemma was due to the global inaction of the international leaders who could make a bigger difference in the entire humanity’s effort to restore the balance of nature disturbed by the anthropogenic activities on mother earth.
SDPI Research Fellow Dr Khalid Waleed, in his presentation, noted that the country’s prevailing energy mix and infrastructure was not resilient enough to bear the aftershocks of global crisis and demands robust out-of-the-box solutions to ensure energy security.
The country amid rapidly changing global energy regimes, carbon footprint limiting legislation on import products in the EU required the country to take up the path of course correction, he added.
Dr Waleed noted that the multifaceted chaos prevailing in the country should be used as a ladder to develop integrated policy solutions for the energy sector.
Ubaid Chaudhary from the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) suggested that the devolution of power generation, transmission infrastructure, and distribution mechanisms was the need of the hour to make the power sector more reliable and efficient.
Keeping in view the absence of the energy subject in political parties’ manifestos; the CPDI has been proposing to add different recommendations in the manifestos with targets by 2030 to ensure a just transition of the energy sector and promotion of energy generation infrastructure, at least, at the grassroots level, he observed.
Former MNA JUI-F Shahida Akhtar Ali appreciated the suggestions by the CPDI at the district level and termed them convincing and promising to yield results.
She assured that she would take up those recommendations to be incorporated in her party’s manifesto.
Senator Seemee Ezdi from the PTI said the dialogue was a much-needed initiative and it was commendable that the institute would continue it.
She added that the country’s vulnerability due to climate change was rising and it demanded a holistic approach which could be explored through public and private partnerships to promote just energy transition with youth on board for inclusive development.
Senator Falak Naz of PTI said her region of Chitral was worst impacted due to climate change as an entire city in the region was washed away by floods due to glacial melt.
Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development (PRIED) CEO Badar Alam, in his remarks, said there were 30 solar and wind projects lying unimplemented since 2012, despite the fact that their letter interests were signed by the then governments.
The political parties should join their voices and forces on such issues to hold the quarters concerned accountable for the delay in the projects impacting the entire sector and the masses at large.
“We need to come out of easy mind solutions but rather a complex thinking to address an intricate issue of shifting energy mix over sustainable and green solutions,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023