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Minister of Environment Dr. Denis Lowe??

As Government prepares, in the not too distant future, to take a Green Economy Policy Paper before Cabinet for discussion, at least one Government Minister has deemed the green economy a plus for Barbados.

This was observed recently by Minister of Environment Dr. Denis Lowe.?? He said: "We believe that as long as we push ourselves in that direction, it is going to create more opportunities for students. It is going to create more areas of economic endeavour and, of course, it is going to create more skill requirements," observed Minister of the Environment, Dr. Denis Lowe.

Pointing out that currently in Barbados thousands of students graduated from University and faced limited professional options, Dr. Lowe maintained that this was because we were constantly replenishing the same pool. "Our position as a Government is that we have to become more creative and we have to follow the world," he asserted.??

With the United States and Europe, in his words "going after green economics," Minister Lowe noted: "One of the ways is that we can depend upon the acceleration of the green economy development, which will allow us time to exploit some of the natural resources which we have.

"We have the sun. ??Barbados was the leading country in solar energy and that designation has now been taken over by another country because we did not freely exploit the opportunities, therein. I am saying that we have to look for them."

Making the point that Barbados was a small country, and if we polluted it, there was nowhere to go; Dr. Lowe underscored the need to exploit new energy alternatives. In this regard, he indicated that Government was currently pursuing a policy on natural gas and how it could become a key energy source.

"We have to look at how we are going to utilise agricultural products rather than looking at them as a single commodity, for example sugar. Now, we have to look for the by products of agriculture, including those from sugar, the cotton industry and a number of others.

"These are all part of the country’s efforts to green its economy – to create new options that I like to call earth-based options. The idea is to look at how we can use the sea and sun, and how we can develop technologies to be able to achieve some of those endeavours without having to pollute our environment and our space in general," he explained.

Indicating that the green economy paper should be ready for Cabinet "very shortly," Dr. Lowe said it should present opportunities for major discussion on how Government intended to "achieve the green economy, block by block."?? cgaskin@barbados.gov.bb

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