Mostafa Monira Firdouse, Green Finance Advisor of Friends of the Earth (HK)
In my view, our living and breathing depend on THREE core elements; energy, food and appropriate government policy. No matter where the world moves with geo-political, financial, technology, innovation, disruption, and more, as living beings, we need these three elements to sustain ourselves.
I was reading WEF Energy Transition Index 2022, I realized that the current energy crisis has created a silver lining- increasing the speed of the energy transition and strengthening its resilience to future challenges. I echo with this and honestly, I strongly believe in it too. Today, as the risks of high fossil fuel prices and uncertainties about the global energy supply outlook increase, countries can seize the opportunity to strengthen their commitments to clean energy investments.
The global energy transition is upon us. Public pressure, falling renewable energy costs, and improving technology are driving the change. The coming decade will be a pivotal point in this transition and will likely dictate whether we meet several international climate goals. It falls on the shoulders of each country to meet their renewable energy commitments.
As we know, electricity generation is the largest contributor to carbon emissions in Hong Kong. Two power companies have gradually replaced coal with natural gas from 2015 to 2020, and so the share of natural gas has significantly increased from around a quarter to almost half. The HK government introduced the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Scheme with the power companies in 2018, in which the power companies purchase RE generated by the private sector at a rate higher than the electricity tariff.
The two power companies have received a total of over 16,000 applications from October 2018 to June 2021, of which over 14,000 have been approved. Upon completion of the installation of all approved solar energy generation systems, about 200 million kWh of electricity is estimated to be generated each year, which is sufficient to meet the electricity demand of about 67,000 households, reducing about 140,000 tons of carbon emissions each year (i.e. about 0.4% of Hong Kong’s total carbon emissions). Link
While I am writing this article, I am counting my 15th anniversary of my motherhood; optimism is thus not a choice for me but survival to remain hopeful for my daughter’s future. I’m looking forward to seeing home grown renewable energy power my lightbulb.
