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I. ASIA-PACIFIC NGO SYMPOSIUM ON REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
AND INITIATIVES FOR ACHIEVING
A "SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE FOR ALL"
21-22 November 2000, Bali, Indonesia
organized by ESCAP
in cooperation with PELANGI, Indonesia
and in parallel with the
High-level Regional Meeting on Energy for Sustainable
Development
The Asia Pacific NGO Symposium was organized by the
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific (ESCAP), in cooperation with PELANGI,
Indonesia, with support provided by the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), the Government of Japan
and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The Symposium was organized as an associated side event
at the ESCAP High-level Regional Meeting on Energy for
Sustainable Development, hosted by the Government of
Indonesia and held at Bali International Convention
Center (BICC), Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, 21-24 November
2000.
The Symposium was convened with the objective to facilitate
the exchange of information and experiences among participating
NGO representatives and resource persons of the Asia-Pacific
region. In addition, participants were invited to discuss
NGO perspectives on the development of a sustainable
energy action programme for the Asia Pacific region.
In their concluding session the NGO Symposium participants
agreed on the following:
A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE FOR ALL:
A COMMON VISION
Sustainable energy is energy for promoting sustainable
human development, which involves no negative health,
environmental, and social impacts in its production
and use, and which can be supplied continuously to
future generations. Such energy is essential for sustainable
development and to counter the potentially devastating
impacts of climate change. The primary objective of
governments, civil society, and intergovernmental bodies
should be to provide sustainable energy for all. This
objective can be best achieved by a combination of strong
governmental and intergovernmental leadership in adopting
policies that promote conservation and sustainable energy
production and use. Strong civil society and NGO leadership
roles are also important in further implementing and
publicizing the conservation and sustainable energy
strategies and technologies. Many of the existing strategies
and technologies are cost-effective and are working
in the real world of local communities. The widespread
dissemination and utilization of such strategies and
technologies could cut greenhouse gas emissions by more
than 50 per cent over the next ten years, as well as
contribute to real sustainability for all communities.
PARTICIPATION BY UNDER-REPRESENTED
SECTORS IN DECISION-MAKING
Recognizing that in order to achieve the vision outlined,
it is essential that all citizens, including low-income
persons, women, indigenous peoples, youth, the aged,
the disabled, and other under-represented sectors of
civil society participate and have key roles in energy
decision making at all levels and in all aspects, we
support the following actions:
STRATEGIES TOWARDS ACHIEVING A
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE
Access to sustainable energy
Energy should be accessible to all at an affordable
price and on an equitable basis. Such supplies should
be capable of being continued indefinitely to achieve
social and environmental goals. For this purpose, national
programmes for sustainable energy development are required
to give priority to the development of indigenous energy
resources, conservation and improving efficiency through
demand and supply side management, developing the most
sustainable renewable technologies, and increasing opportunities
for private and public sector cooperation. All governments,
international organizations, international funding agencies,
and various major groups of civil society, including
NGOs, should work together in a global partnership to
plan, fund and implement such efforts.
Power plants which severely pollute the environment
in their vicinity and which cause significant health
hazards should be decommissioned as soon as possible.
Each nation should initiate a political process that
establishes quantitative targets for energy production
from renewable energy resources.
Energy conservation and efficiency
A key way to achieve sustainable energy is to promote
energy conservation and efficiency strategies and technologies
in all sectors, including government, industry, agriculture,
commerce, housing, transport and consumer products.
Many conservation strategies make a considerable impact
at minimal cost. These include sustainable planning,
design and construction of built environments and efficiency
of industrial and commercial equipment and products.
Sustainable renewable forms of energy
Micro-hydro: Hydroelectric energy is currently the
most widely used renewable energy technology in large-scale
installations. Large dams destroy bio-diversity, and
adversely affect the ecosystems in surrounding. NGOs
are concerned that current generation capacity of large
hydro plants should not be increased without due consideration
of the environmental and social dimensions. Stricter
controls for determining negative environmental impacts
should be enforced. Instead, investments should be re-directed
to micro-hydro and run-of-the river power plants.
Wind: Wind energy, through the use of modern wind turbines,
is a form of renewable energy that is already cost-competitive
with oil and natural gas in many parts of the world.
Small wind turbines are cost-effective in non-grid-connected
rural areas. One possibility is to use combined wind-solar
energy systems. In this technology, solar photovoltaic
panels and wind turbines combine to provide energy,
which decreases the use of costly battery storage systems.
More extensive pilot projects are needed to fully realize
the potential for completely decentralized small wind
applications.
Biomass: Biomass should be used for the production
of biogas. However, the commercial production of biomass
for power generation, such as monoculture tree plantations,
often adversely affects nearby ecosystems. Land used
for plantations may sometimes be used for food production.
Solar Thermal: Solar thermal technologies are the most
cost-effective option for applications in which low
temperatures are required, such as solar stills, solar
water heaters and solar cookers.
Solar Photovoltaics (PV): Solar PV technology is an
especially cost effective and convenient technology
for the generation of electricity in rural areas, especially
in remote areas where grids connection is impractical.
Solar PV technology is currently providing the energy
to power remote telecommunications equipment in almost
every country in the region. Another cost-effective
solar PV technology is building-integrated PV technology,
in which the solar PV panels are integrated into building
materials, and thus the "higher" cost of the
PV is decreased by the savings in the building materials.
Another strategy in grid-connected areas to promote
the use of solar PV is net metering, in which the customer
is credited for solar production during the daytime,
and debited for use of energy from the grid during night
periods.
Sustainable energy for rural areas
More than one-half of the world's population lives
in rural areas, of which the vast majority is in developing
countries. Recent research has revealed that the solid
fuels used in poor rural households can cause many diseases,
for example, infectious respiratory diseases, chronic
respiratory diseases, asthma, blindness and heart disease.
The immediate dissemination of information about the
use of sustainable renewable energy technologies, such
as solar PV for electricity, solar cookers, solar water
heaters, and hybrid wind-solar systems for electricity,
can alleviate the problems of rural health and poverty.
Strong efforts must be made to promote appropriate rural
energy solutions with integrated components of income
generation and village development. Strong priority
should be placed on energy programmes that alleviate
poverty by encouraging integrated income generation
schemes.
Sustainable energy for transport
Over the last 50 years or more, there have been enormous
government subsidies to support the use of motorized
vehicles, which are among the biggest consumers of fossil
fuels. There have been and continue to be direct non-renewable
fuel subsidies which should be gradually eliminated.
It is important to establish and enforce efficiency
standards on fuels and emissions, to promote the use
of alternative fuels in order to decrease the level
of urban pollution. Cleaner vehicles using liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed natural gas (CNG)
can be important in the transition towards more sustainable
transport. Such vehicles include non-motorized transport,
transport with zero emissions and transport using hydrogen
fuel cells, solar or other sustainable forms of energy.
Transport planning and design, and the increased production
and use of clean fuel based forms of mass transportation
and non-motorized forms of transport are equally significant.
Considering the urgency of this issue ample funds, for
pilot demonstration projects are needed to attract investment
from the private sector.
TIME FRAMES FOR ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE
ENERGY STRATEGIES
Governments, international organizations, international
funding agencies and various major groups of civil society,
including NGOs, should establish time frames between
2002 and 2010 for achieving the above strategies. Such
bodies should cooperate in order to ensure that the
strategies are achieved within the established time
frames.
TOOLS FOR IMPLEMENTING SUSTAINABLE
ENERGY STRATEGIES
End Harmful Energy Subsidies and Re-Direct
Funding into Sustainable Energy
Governments should phase out subsidies for fossil
fuels, nuclear energy and large-scale hydropower and
re-direct funding to energy conservation and the production
and consumption of the most sustainable renewable sources
of energy. These include micro-hydro, wind, solar cookers,
solar PV for remote areas, hybrid wind-solar systems,
and biomass.
The social goals of consumer subsidies would be best
achieved by targeted support to low-income and other
disadvantaged groups.
Full Cost Accounting in all Energy Policy
and Pricing Decisions
External benefits, such as the benefits to health,
society and environment, should be calculated into the
cost of sustainable, renewable sources of energy. Similarly,
external costs, such as the costs to health, society,
and environment from the production and consumption
of unsustainable forms of energy, should be internalized
into all energy policy and pricing decisions.
Mobilizing Financial Resources and Innovative
Financial Strategies
Various financial strategies to achieve the goal of
access to sustainable energy should be strongly supported.
These include: micro-credit and rural credit for small
sustainable energy businesses; incentives for energy
conservation initiatives and marketing/development of
sustainable renewable energy technologies; "green
choice", in which power customers are given the
option to pay more for non-polluting energy, funding
for the systematic collection and dissemination of data
on energy conservation, efficiency and the
most sustainable renewable energy resources and redirecting
subsidies towards research and development activities.
Such subsidies should result in simple, cheap and easy-to-manage
energy production technology.
Sustainable Energy Capacity Building
Capacity building to promote sustainable energy for
government and NGO representatives would upgrade their
skills and knowledge to undertake long-term planning
integrating environmental, social and economic aspects.
Sustainable energy education and training is needed
for energy policy-makers in governments, intergovernmental
agencies, and major groups in civil society. All sectors
should support such education.
Sustainable energy education for the general public,
especially primary school children, is important to
achieve the goal of a sustainable energy future for
all.
Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Some countries in the ESCAP region are vulnerable
to sea level rise and extreme weather events. Governments
must therefore implement disaster mitigation and preparedness
programmes and undertake appropriate infrastructure
planning. This will require the allocation of additional
funds.
International and Regional Cooperation
Networks among governments, intergovernmental regional
and international agencies, and major stakeholders in
civil society should be established to share information
on sustainable energy and the transfer of energy technologies.
The exchange of expertise and training programmes can
strengthen capacity in each country, region or sub-region.
Technology transfer among countries in the region
can be a major tool for sustainable energy development.
Appropriate information technology can support an enabling
environment for networking, regional and international
cooperation and technology transfer.
CONCLUDING RECOMMENDATIONS
ON NGO NETWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN
ASIA PACIFIC REGION
The NGO Symposium participants recommend the following
measures to all governments and to the participants
in ninth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development:
(a) encourage the civil society and relevant agencies
of ESCAP countries to implement the actions and measures
proposed in this document;
(b) encourage the establishment of a network for a
sustainable energy development and invite, civil society
and other relevant organizations of Asian and Pacific
countries to participate in the network;
(c) agree that the primary function of the network
is to provide a forum to strengthen cooperation among
civil society groups of ESCAP countries in implementing
the NGO initiatives for sustainable energy development
in the Asia and Pacific region;
(d) agree that projects be developed for pursuing the
outcome of the symposium and that UN organizations be
requested to assist for this purpose;
(e) request the donor community to provide adequate
financial support to the NGO network and its projects;
(f) express deep appreciation to the authorities, donors
and related agencies for their participation in the
network for sustainable energy development in Asia and
Pacific region.
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