Caribbean Consumers Urged to Conserve Energy to Avert Economic Crisis
Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 15:00 CDT
Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website on 19 September
Bridgetown, Barbados: Deputy Commonwealth Secretary-General Winston Cox has called on Caribbean consumers to conserve more energy, amid concerns that rising world oil prices could trigger a fall in economic activity.
"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have done some calculations which suggest that every time the price of oil rises by about 5 US dollars there's a loss of between half and one per cent in global economic output," Cox told a news conference ahead of the opening of the Commonwealth finance ministers meeting on Sunday [18 September].
"But you can counterbalance that by becoming more energy efficient, using less gas, less petrol and less fossil fuel to generate electricity."
He also noted that the Barbados electricity company, Barbados Light and Power, has managed to use less energy over the last 20 years.
"That institution has become extremely energy efficient and now they use less fossil fuel to produce the same units of electricity.
"And my advise to Barbadians would be they have to do the same thing - use their household energy more efficiently. I don't think we can have the luxury of anticipating a sharp fall in oil prices so let's go to conservation, improving efficiency and looking at alternatives," Cox said.
Oil prices on the global market are hovering near 70 US dollars per barrel, and a number of Caribbean countries recently signed the PetroCaribe agreement with Venezuela, under which Caracas would supply oil at concessionary rates.
The Caribbean states would also be afforded an initial grace period of two years for repayment and part of the oil purchases can be repaid with goods and services.
Source: BBC Monitoring Americas
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