Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Credit: Diana Mendoza/IPS

By Diana Mendoza
MANILA, May 14 2018 (IPS)

IPS caught up with Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), at the end of the flagship side event of the GGGI during the 51^st Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila on May 4, 2018, which featured the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its potential to create sustainable infrastructure and promote green growth pathways.

In this brief chat with IPS correspondent Diana Mendoza, Dr. Rijsberman noted the success of just a few countries with successful environmental protection policies, while many others have yet to adopt green growth policies.

Q: China is obviously the major player in the BRI. How does GGGI see China influencing other countries to actively take part in it and adopt green growth policies?

A: China is a huge investor. Among the countries in the BRI, China is the most important foreign direct investor, if not one of the most important. What we are particularly interested from our GGGI perspective is that China has also become, out of necessity, an important source of green technology because it implements renewable energy policies at a large scale. It is but fitting for it to have initiated the BRI. It is a leader in electric mobility, green technology and policy. It is keen on its air quality around Beijing and has very rapidly cleaned it up in just the last two years. What we’re interested in also is not just having large direct investments as part of their BRI initiative but how it will influence its government to export green technology.

Q: On one hand, China has also upset its Asian neighbors, particularly in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), that claim China is exploring their islands and upsetting territorial boundaries.

A: I know basically nothing about territorial disputes but it’s clear that China is a world power, a dominant force.  It is very influential and we are hoping it will use this to bring opportunities for other countries to prosper. We’ve been seeing China for decades as having relations with countries in bringing resources such as Afghan steel or mineral resources to which China is a huge importer. That’s basically the first relationship we’re seeing in a bilateral way. It is also starting its ODA ministry to bring more support to developing countries and is willing share more environmental technology and hopefully, to also share the benefits of the equal civilization approach.

Q: What would the equal civilization approach mean to countries around the BRI?

A: There are small and relatively poor countries along the Maritime Silk Road. Growth and development should also benefit them. The impact of climate change and the unhealthy effects of modernization and urbanization affect all countries, but green development has to be equal for all.

Q: What are GGGI’s priorities in the next five years?

A: We would like to see countries adopting renewable energy policies. Many countries are not introducing renewable energy to the potential that they have. Many countries also have some policies but we see they only have something like 1 percent solar, where it could be 20 or 30 percent. Only in China do we see a very rapid transition to renewable energy and electricity generation. But I live in Korea and they only have 2 percent. The government recently increased the target for renewable energy to 20 percent, but you know even 20 percent is still modest.

Q: How much is the ideal target for renewable energy?

A: It should be 50 or 60 percent if we want to achieve what was agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. Vietnam is still planning to build 24 more coal fire-powered plants. The current paths that many governments are on are still very far away from achieving the Paris Agreement. We need to see a rapid switch to renewable energy and we think it’s much more feasible than governments are aware of. Prices have come down so quickly that you know I’ve been spending most of my week in the Philippines and the provincial governments are still talking about hydropower because that’s what they know. You go to Mindanao and they’re talking about this big project in 1953 and they know that renewable energy is hydro.

Q: So hydro is not the answer?

A: We told them that if they want more hydro they should realize there are much better opportunities now in solar energy.  Even if the potential in hydro is there, it’s complex. It takes a long time and it has a big environmental risks. It takes five years to put it in place and construction is complicated. You can have solar in six months if you have enough land. In Manila, every school, factory and shopping mall should have solar rooftops already. In Canberra, even if the central government was not all active in this movement, it adopted in 2016 the 100 percent renewable policy by 2020. It is doing just that and it looks good.

Q: What can you say about tiny efforts to protect the environment such as opting for paper bags instead of plastic bags?  

A: A plastic bag should no longer be available. We should absolutely stop using all those disposable plastic bags. We should all look at the major impact that plastics cause, that micro-plastics go into the sea and the fish eat them. It goes back to our body when we eat the fish. It goes right back in the body.

Q: So which counties have totally eradicated plastic?

A: Rwanda — they said no more plastic bags. There will be many more countries that will do that. They will say you don’t have to pay for plastic bags if you didn’t bring your eco bag or there’s no available paper bag. If there is plastic, it has to be biodegradable. The cheap plastic in the supermarket lasts forever. It looks biodegradable if you leave it in the sun, but it’s more dangerous when it is thrown into the sea. But either way, there should be no more plastic bags anywhere.

Q: You live in Seoul and you mentioned about your child not going to an event because of bad air. How do you think kids understand environmental issues?  

A: The school nurse checks the air quality and informs us in the morning. My wife also does that. Our nine-year-old is totally aware of that. Even if it’s not too bad, the kids go to school wearing masks. The kids’ experiences on a daily basis will help them understand the need for clean, quality air.  This way, they will learn about the rest of the environment concerns as they grow up.

A fisherman on the Si Phan Don riverine archipelago of the Mekong River. Credit: Courtesy of Suthep Kritsanavarin/Oxfam

By Lawrence Del Gigante
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2012 (IPS)

The Cambodian government has committed to the construction of two dams along the Mekong River in order to meet a huge demand for electricity, but environmental groups warn that severe repercussions loom for this strategy.

“While each project proposed in Cambodia comes with a different set of impacts, large dams are likely to widen the gap between the rich and the poor, increase malnourishment levels and lead to an environmentally unsustainable future,” Ame Trandem, South East Asia programme director for International Rivers, told IPS.

Four dam projects have been approved so far in Cambodia, with one already operational. All are being developed by Chinese companies on build-operate-transfer agreements, according to Trandem.

The Mekong River runs through six countries, including China and Vietnam, most of which are planning the construction of hydroelectric dams.

“The plans to build a cascade of 11 Mekong mainstream dams is one of the greatest threats currently facing Cambodia,” said Trandem.

The mandate on planning and development of hydropower in Cambodia lies within the ministry of industry, mines and energy, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Another danger of damming the Mekong is the threat to the Mekong delta, an extremely fertile area of land which is responsible for much of the region’s rice supply.

“As the Mekong River feeds and employs millions of people in the region for free, it would be irresponsible to proceed with the Xayaburi and other mainstream dams,” said Trandem.

The Mekong is one of the only rivers in the world to reverse its flow in the dry season. This natural mechanism buffers the intrusion of salt water from the South China Sea into the delta, and could be upset by upstream development.

Dams also block fish migration routes, alter flows, and change aquatic habitats, so these projects are also likely to have an adverse effect on Cambodia’s fisheries.

“The Mekong River Commission’s Strategic Environmental Assessment warned that more than one million fisheries-dependent people in Cambodia would lose their livelihoods and even more would suffer from food insecurity,” said Trandem.

“The loss of even a small percentage of the Mekong’s fisheries can represent in a loss of tens of millions of dollars.”

Partnerships have been established between the countries through which the Mekong runs in order to prevent overharvesting of the river’s resources. However, China is not a signatory to the 1995 Mekong Agreement, and can effectively build these projects independently from downstream countries. The dams in Cambodia are being financed by Chinese investors.

“The impacts of these projects are already being felt downstream,” said Trandem.

Hydroelectricity, even if a successful venture, will not solve the country’s electrification problems, other analysts say.

“Right now it is relatively catastrophic, the power situation in the country,” Alexander Ochs, the director of climate and energy at the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, told IPS.

Cambodia has one of the lowest electrification rates in Southeast Asia, estimated at only 24 percent, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The government aims to raise the national electrification rate to 70 percent by 2020, according to the ADB, by expanding the grid and sourcing more than half of the needed electricity from the Mekong River.

A large complication is transmitting the electricity, with only the major cities and surrounding areas having access to power lines, meaning people in rural areas will not benefit from the hydro.

“The number of people that are really connected to a grid as we know it, a modern power service or energy line, in rural areas is as little as seven percent of the population. Overall, nationwide, it’s about 15 percent,” said Ochs.

Biomass is very popular for heating and cooking, predominantly burning wood for fires and stoves.

“Everything else comes from off-grid or micro-grid diesel generators and this is very inefficient and very costly, a very expensive, very dirty way to produce electricity,” said Ochs.

Currently, 91 percent of Cambodia’s power plants are fuelled by imported light diesel and heavy fuel oil, not including the diesel it takes to fuel stand-alone generators.

“All of this happens in a country where you have incredible renewable energy potential. It has amazing potential for wind, very, very good potential for solar,” said Ochs.

Importantly, the solar potential in Cambodia is very high where it’s needed, including in the populated areas, meaning solar technologies can be installed domestically, such as solar panels on the roofs of houses, according to Ochs.

Solar technologies could provide off-grid communities with access to power as well as promoting clean energy in the country. However, solar technologies can be expensive, lack the reliability of stand-alone generators and often need constant maintenance.

The situation is exacerbated by the presence of imitation solar products on the market, which often break easily, thereby diminishing consumer trust in the technology.

Cambodia’s potential for renewable energies exceeds many countries in the developed world, analysts say, and Cambodia is in a good position to create favourable economies of scale for renewable energies.

“I wouldn’t argue for building a national grid, giant coal plants and importing coal, or developing only large hydro, as recent actions seem to suggest. Let’s work with the system as it is today, and develop distributed renewable solutions on the ground,” said Ochs.