Sri Lanka will cease building new coal-fired power plants and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in an address to the United Nations International Energy Forum on Friday.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka has set a target of achieving 70% of all its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2030.<\/p>\n
“Sri Lanka is happy to be a co-lead of the Energy Compact for No New Coal Power,” Rajapaksa said.<\/p>\n
Governments including Sri Lanka, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Montenegro, and the UK have announced a No New Coal Power Compact to halt the construction of coal-fired power plants, according to climate advocacy group Sustainable Energy for All.<\/p>\n
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and small and large hydro power plants together account for half of the island nation’s installed electricity capacity, with coal and oil-fired power accounting for the rest.<\/p>\n
Renewable and hydroelectric power currently account for about 35% of the country’s power demand.<\/p>\n
“Our aim is to transition away from fossil fuels, promote de-carbonization, and make Sri Lanka a carbon neutral country by 2050,” he said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Faced with what they see as an existential threat, leaders from low-lying and island nations implored rich countries at the United Nations General Assembly this week to act more forcefully against a warming planet.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka is the latest Asian country to pledge an end to building new coal-fired power, following similar moves by South Korea and Japan earlier this year. Asia accounts for a lion’s share of global coal consumption.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka’s announcement follows China’s pledge to not build new coal-fired power projects abroad at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week.<\/p>\n
China has significant investments in infrastructure and energy projects in Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and in African countries such as Kenya.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka will also discourage imports of fossil fuel-powered vehicles, encourage adoption of electric cars and investments in green energy, Rajapaksa said.<\/p>\n
“I request countries that have the required capabilities to support developing nations as they attempt this transition to more sustainable energy generation,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sri Lanka will cease building new coal-fired power plants and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in an address to the United Nations International Energy Forum on Friday. Sri Lanka has set a target of achieving 70% of all its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2030. “Sri Lanka is happy to be a co-lead of the Energy Compact for No New Coal Power,” Rajapaksa said. Governments including Sri Lanka, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Montenegro, and the UK have announced a No New Coal Power Compact to halt the construction of coal-fired power plants, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}