The New Nation - Internet Edition

The potential is huge. Never mind that much of rural Philippines is currently lighted by kerosene lanterns and cooking is made on inefficient, smoky stoves that are damaging to health.

Renewable energy, combined with the smart use of energy, can deliver over 60 percent of the Philippines energy needs by 2050.

And it can stabilize the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and greenhouse gases that cause global warming. All that is missing is the right policy support.

The Department of Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment (Institute of Technical Thermodynamics) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Greenpeace, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and experts from the National Engineering Center of the University of the Philippines, have produced an energy scenario for the Philippines as a practical blueprint on how to urgently meet carbon dioxide reduction targets and secure affordable energy supply.

The conclusion: renewable energy could provide as much as 57 percent of the Philippines' energy needs by 2030, given the political will to promote its large scale deployment.

And by choosing renewable energy and energy efficiency, the Philippines can stabilize its carbon dioxide emissions, while at the same time achieving economic growth.

A crucial prerequisite for achieving a significant share of renewable energy is to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

Today, more than half (about 55 percent) of the country's primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels.

Renewable energy sources are fast closing in, accounting for 44 percent of the primary energy demand.

Biomass, used almost entirely for cooking, as well as geothermal and hydro power, both mainly used for electricity production, are the currently used renewable energy sources.

The share of renewable energy in electricity generation is 32 percent. The contribution of renewables to primary energy demand for cooking is around 68 percent.

The electricity sector will have the strongest growth in renewable energy utilization. By 2050, more than 70 percent of electricity will be produced from renewable energy sources.

In the transport sector biofuels are currently the only available technology, which could provide a major share of renewable energy.

By 2050 over 60 percent of primary energy demand will be covered by renewable energy sources.

Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the Philippines up to 2050 will remain roughly the same, peaking in 2020 and increasing from 75 million tons in 2005 to 81 million tons in 2050. Annual per capita emissions will remain at around 1 ton.

In spite of the increased use of gas power plants and rising electricity demand, carbon dioxide emissions will decrease in the electricity sector.

While the power sector today is among the largest sources of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the Philippines, it will contribute about 25 percent of the total in 2050.

Increasing energy efficiency and shifting energy supply to renewable energy resources will reduce the long-term costs for electricity supply by nearly 40 percent.

The expert consensus is that this fundamental change must begin very soon and be well underway within the next 10 years in order to avert the worst impacts.

We do not need nuclear po-wer. What we do need is a complete transformation in the way we produce, consume and distribute energy.

Nothing short of such a revolution will enable us to limit global warming to less than two degree Celsius, above which the impacts become devastating.

Time is running out.

An overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion now agrees that climate change is happening, is caused largely by human activities (such as burning fossil fuels), and if left unchecked, will have disastrous consequences.

There is solid scientific evidence that we should act now. This is reflected in the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN institution of more than 1,000 scientists providing advice to policy makers.

The Kyoto Protocol has committed its signatories to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent from their 1990 level by the target period of 2008 to 2012. The Philippines signed the Protocol in October 2003.

The Kyoto signatories are currently negotiating the second phase of the agreement, covering the period from 2013 to 2017.

Within this timeframe, industrialized countries need to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 18 percent from 1990 levels and then by 30 percent between 2018 and 2022.

Only with these cuts do we stand a reasonable chance of keeping the average increase in global temperatures to less than two degree Celsius, beyond which the effects of climate change will become catastrophic.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia