Biz Buzz: Misplaced priority? Aboitiz gets real on RE fad

Power firms feel the heat from the pressure of investing big in renewable energy—despite the Philippines’ tiny, tiny carbon footprint.

An executive of Aboitiz Group said that the government tries very hard to influence or curb the clichéd issue of climate change.

“We put the burden on ourselves to solve the world’s problem, which is climate change, even though we’re really not responsible for it,” AboitizPower chief corporate services officer Carlos Aboitiz said in a recent chat.

The Marcos administration has long stressed the need to erect more clean energy facilities, aiming to scale up the latter’s share in the power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030 from the current 22 percent.

This, even though the Philippines’ share in the global emissions from coal accounted for just 0.5 percent, way lower than economic powerhouse China with 29.2 percent, data from the Department of Energy earlier showed.

Aboitiz said instead of focusing on achieving energy security and affordability, government leaders, politicians, energy firms, and civil societies worldwide have equally applied and shouldered the load of fixing this destructive shift in weather.

See Also

Brewed by masters

The official even said investing in the power sector was hounded by “a lot of inefficiencies,” making shelling out money harder. The realized return from the investment companies pour in may take one to two decades.

In his speech at a forum in Singapore, Aboitiz also said that shifting to renewables is not necessarily cheaper.

“Often, we hear pronouncements that renewables are cheaper than their fossil fuel counterparts… Unfortunately, the math doesn’t add up,” Aboitiz said.