Minister for Natural Resources and Labour, Hon. Dr. Kedrick Pickering said government is working diligently at establishing a climate change fund. Photo:VINO/file

This was made known last evening, October 1, 2012 when he appeared on NDP Radio, which was aired on a local radio station.

Hon. Pickering declared that part of the essence of the recently passed Climate Change Adaptation Policy is the potential to establish what is known as the climate change fund.

“The establishment of that fund,” he continued, “will allow the VI to access international finances that can be used in turn to help set in place a number of these alternative energy projects that are envisioned and ultimately will help to reduce our energy costs and to reduce carbon emissions.”

Members of the panel on the programme had earlier discussed a number of approaches to implementing alternative energy sources and also noted that the Virgin Islands (VI) needs to move away from the use of fossil fuels.

They agreed, however, that the cost of implementing renewable energy sources could be prohibitive for the most part.

Minister for Health and Social Development, Hon. Ronnie W. Skelton, who it was revealed is a former engineer, said as the cost of fuel prices rise “it seems like there is never space for a government or people or an individual to really invest in renewable energy,” even though this was the right thing to do.

He added that the cost of investing in renewable energy is out of the reach of the ordinary person or even out of the reach of some governments, who don’t have the resources to invest in such projects.

He further noted that getting the money from funding agencies for such projects is also a very expensive operation.

Premier, Hon. Dr D. Orlando Smith said he was told that the initial high cost would be offset over the years by the reduced level of emissions.

Hon. Skelton quickly interjected to say that this was only true if the equipment served its operation life span of five or six years.

Hon. Pickering further revealed later in the programme that “the establishment of the climate change fund is a very detailed and involved process that could take anywhere from a year to eighteen months.”

He added that it is one of the prohibitive factors that have forced smaller countries to be “uninterested” in going down this road, but “we have taken the lead in putting the policy in place. “

“Once we get that established,” he asserted, “we should be much better placed to have access to finances to do some other projects that would [see us reducing emissions].”

Hon. Pickering had explained in June of 2012 that the Climate Change Adaptation Policy had just been passed in the House of Assembly and also that the VI was the first in the Caribbean to adopt such a comprehensive policy. He had then indicated that funding for the implementation of the policy would come from the European Union.