By Dennis Posadas

THE Philippines may be one of the world’s top supporters of Earth Hour and Earth Day. We may have a new Renewable Energy Act. But if all this does not translate into greenhouse gas emission reduction, then all that is for naught. After all, don’t you think it is time to move beyond token political statements on clean energy, and actually implement these clean energy projects?

In order for GHG reduction to take effect, the Philippines to seriously take advantage of the new Renewable Energy Act, by having a companion ecosystem for innovation, financing, and deployment of renewable energy projects.

That is why I am so pleased to find out that opportunities to finance clean energy projects were showcased in the Philippines Clean Energy Investor Forum last June 15 at the Edsa Shangri-La hotel. The forum showcased projects that evolved from a competition, sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Private Finance Advisory Network (PFAN).

PFAN is a multi-lateral public-private partnership which is managed in Asia by USAID’s ECO-ASIA Clean Development and Climate program and initiated by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Climate Technology Initiative.

The PFAN Philippines Clean Energy Investor Forum served as a platform for Philippine energy entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas to investors.

Six finalists were chosen by PFAN for the Philippines Business Plan competition. Each of the companies received mentoring and one-on-one coaching before they formally made their investment pitches in the forum. The event was basically a dog and pony show of those seeking investments, before a group of investors who also want to invest in renewable/clean energy.

The total value of investments of those who made it to the finals was potentially more than $500 million, comprising both debt and equity finance.

In addition to offering promising investments, these projects have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 per year, according to USAID.

During the June 15 presentations, the panel of judges selected two Clean Energy Financing Award winners for the Philippines. The winner, Asea One, is proposing to setup 16 clean energy powerplants in Negros Oriental and the Western Visayas, while the other finalist, SURE is proposing to build, own and operate clean energy plants that run on feedstocks like rice husks and wood chips.

“By bringing together clean energy entrepreneurs and investors, the PFAN Philippines Clean Energy Investor Forum is addressing the barriers that clean energy businesses face in seeking financing,” said Jon Lindborg, Mission Director for USAID Philippines.

“These barriers make it difficult for investors to identify and screen viable clean energy projects.” USAID believes that by identifying and nurturing the best ideas, they can help facilitate financing for the projects.

The Agency is also working to expand regional clean energy finance initiatives on a regional basis by developing a network of businesses and investors interested in promoting sustainable clean energy technologies and businesses.

The next stop of the PFAN Investor Forum is Indonesia on June 25, and then Hong Kong, where the PFAN China Investor Forum will be held 27-28 September.

It is great that we have the Renewable Energy Act in place, a product of all the years that groups like Greenpeace and WWF lobbied our Congress to implement.

We can send all the representatives that we want to send to Copenhagen this year and have all the laws and policies in place, but if back home we do not build the ecosystem that will encourage actual clean energy entrepreneurs and ventures, we will simply be talking about greenhouse gas emission reduction, and not really doing anything about it.

Dennis Posadas is the author of Jump Start: A Technopreneurship Fable (Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009)

MANILA, Philippines—A non-government organization (NGO) is calling on government to recognize the “real and present danger” posed by climate change to coastal communities on Earth Day which is being celebrated today.

The Tambuyog Development Center, an NGO that assists coastal municipalities in drafting local Fisheries Code and Coastal Resource Management Plans, is calling the attention of various government agencies to fast track responses to climate change challenges.

Tambuyog specified the assistance of the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Interior and Local Government.

During its Earth Day event, Dinna Umengan, lead campaigner of the group, said Tambuyog was primarily concerned with the impact of climate change on coastal and marine natural resources that have a direct bearing on the food security and livelihood of millions of people in coastal communities.

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By Dennis Posadas

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared officially that six greenhouse gases namely carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride, are a threat to public health and welfare.

Based on scientific evidence, particularly that summarized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007, these greenhouse gases produce global warming which is responsible for stronger storms, changes in weather patterns, higher sea levels that inundate formerly habitable coastal areas, and other effects.

This declaration by the EPA will hopefully be a precursor to how the United States will act in the Copenhagen summit this year. Copenhagen is where the world’s leaders will gather this year to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol which the Bush administration refused to ratify.

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A Filipino returning scientist is proposing to develop a solution to clean up areas that have been ruined by mining contamination.

Agustine Doronila, a University of Melbourne senior research fellow, said that he was willing to help establish a “phytoremediation” research group that would harness plants to recover contaminants from the ground and water, thereby restoring ecological balance in a mining area.

Doronila is now part of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Balik Scientist Program.

Doronila said the research, dubbed the Philippine Metalophyte Research Consortium, would be based in Ateneo De Manila University.

He said there are endemic plants in the country that could be used for phytoremediation. These include the spurge plant or Euphobiaceae (scientific name Phyllanthus balgooyi), which has been described in a study by botanist Domingo Madulid as a “hyper accumulator” or a plant that could absorb large quantities of heavy metals.

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By Dennis Posadas
Contributor

THE ongoing debate between the environmentalists and the pro-nuclear advocates simply illustrates what is missing in most arguments around the world on clean energy and climate change. Too often, the typical argument by the environmentalists is to position renewable energy as the alternative to nuclear energy.

What many people don’t realize is that it is not as simple as not going nuclear, not going with coal and then just going renewable. It is nice to hear, and as a clean energy blogger (I run a blog called GO Clean Energy), I am also not that naive to say that renewable energy will solve all our problems in the near future. This notwithstanding the fact that technology is advancing in this arena; for example on the day of Barack Obama’s inaugural address as President, the firm FirstSolar announced that it had breached the $1/watt mark, at $0.98c/watt for its solar photovoltaic thin film cells.

Granted that we can do a lot by conserving energy both voluntarily and technologically (think microchips to make appliances automatically adjust their demand), and that we Asians can tap energy sources like geothermal, and maybe even some good operating practices like staggered turn-on of large electricity consuming appliances like chillers and motors in our factories and shopping malls, the fact is that Asian societies have to move beyond simply mouthing phrases like No to Nukes or No to Coal, and actually educate themselves about what is out there as well as what is the state of the art.

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