The government’s plan of ensuring at least 40% of its overall electricity generation from clean sources is certainly ambitious, but nonetheless vital when it comes to meeting the rising energy demands of a still-developing Bangladesh.
Nepal has been slowly transitioning away from its use of fossil fuels to generate power for its domestic market, but the nation also plans to export that power. With Nepal’s potential for generating more than 40,000MW of energy through hydro-power, it makes all the sense in the world for our country to seek bilateral help from the nation in order to carry out our own clean energy mission.
That clean energy is the future is not a matter that is up for debate anymore. The past few decades has seen an inordinate uptick in the emission of greenhouse gasses which are wreaking absolute havoc on our planet. Given that Bangladesh is one of the nations most vulnerable to the effects of the global climate crisis, it is not only in our own best interests to pivot towards renewable energy but in the interests of the world at large.
Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine exposed just how delicate the global energy market is, as the event sent a shockwave around the world causing a massive energy crisis two years ago. Fossil fuels and traditional methods of generating power are clearly no longer viable, and any contradiction to that claim is almost always made by those with vested interests.
However, any such pivot would have to follow the necessary preparations, and before that the administration needs to codify renewables as an inextricable part of its energy policies going forward.