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News > World

80% of Pacific Island Homes Have No Electricity

  • Ba, a town on Fiji’s Viti Levu Island shown after Cyclone Winston February 21, 2016.

    Ba, a town on Fiji’s Viti Levu Island shown after Cyclone Winston February 21, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 4 August 2016
Opinion

“About seven million of the nine million people in Pacific Island countries do not have access to electricity,” Khelawan said.

Only 20 percent of homes in the Pacific Islands have access to electricity, said a senior official from the World Bank Wednesday, and the electricity that is available is very expensive.

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Speaking at the Pacific Power Association Conference in Tonga, energy specialist Kamleshwar Khelawan said, “The Pacific countries lack, or have limited, indigenous energy resources while the high cost of imported fossil fuels means that Pacific Islands require an increased focus on alternative sources of energy.

“About seven million of the nine million people in Pacific Island countries do not have access to electricity,” Khelawan said.

Papua New Guinea has the lowest rates of electricity at 15 percent, with the Solomon Islands at 20 percent and Vanuatu at 30 percent.

Khelawan explained that much work was needed both by governments and the private sector to be able to improve energy development in the region and spoke of the potential for a number of Pacific countries to develop more renewable energy options.

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"Governments alone cannot fund the significant investment needed. A combination of government, private sector and development partner efforts are required," Khelawan explained.

The region is also under significant threat from future effects of climate change, one of the biggest being to low lying regions that could face being swallowed up by rising sea levels.

Pacific Island nations have called on the rest of the world, in particular richer countries, to work collectively to combat the environmental threat. Ahead of last year's climate change summit in Paris, Fiji's Prime Minister, Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, said that “the Pacific as we know it, is doomed.”

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Did anyone ask the Pacific Islanders whether they want electricity and infrastructure, and the taxes ad regulation that come with it? The article reads like a power company megaproject press release.
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