PRESIDENT David Granger on Wednesday last joined regional leaders from the Caribbean Community and Central America at the US State Department, Washington DC, for the US- Caribbean- Central American Energy Summit.The summit was held to consider the way forward for the Caribbean and Central America, arising out of the recommendations of a Task Force which had been established to identity concrete steps to promote energy security and clean energy development in the Caribbean and Central America.
The one-day Summit has its genesis in the June 2014 launch, by US Vice-President Joseph Biden, of the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CSEI). This was followed in January 2015 by the hosting of the US- Caribbean Energy Security Summit (CESS) in Washington DC. That summit examined the regulatory and coordinating mechanisms needed to attract greater investment in the sustainable energy sector in the Caribbean.
The process was further advanced in April of 2015 when US President Barack Obama met separately with the leaders of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica and committed to providing early-stage funding for clean-energy projects in the Caribbean. At the said meeting, the US President had also agreed to establish a Task Force for the Caribbean and Central American Energy Security (US-CCA Task Force) to look at the future of clean-energy development in the Caribbean and Central America.
The summit, which President Granger attended last Wednesday at the US State Department, was intended as a follow-up to the work of the Task Force.
It follows closely on the heels of Guyana’s signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations in New York on April 22 last. President Granger while affixing his signature to the Paris Agreement, had promised that Guyana would invest in solar power, wind power and hydropower to transition more rapidly to renewable sources of energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels as part of Guyana’s green development plans. (Ministry of the Presidency release)
President Granger was accompanied to the summit by Guyana’s Ambassador to Washington, Bayney Karran.