By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Uganda government has stepped up efforts to improve use of clean technology to mitigate climate change.
At the budget reading for the Financial Year 2021/22, government allocated Shs1.1 trillion for sustainable energy development.
All Africa which cited Independent news stated that climate change will be mitigated with the re-introduction of Cleantech which entails the investment of asset class, technology, and business sectors into clean energy, environmental, and sustainable products and services.
Cleantech ranges from the use of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro to smart cities, smart agriculture, smart electric grids, transport services and smart infrastructure.
Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD), the Commissioner of Renewable Energy, Brian Isabirye says the Energy and Mineral Development Sector has consistently ranked among the top five priorities, scoring 9.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent of the total budget for the years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 financial years, respectively.
However, given the wide mandate of the energy sector, there is always a resource enhancement gap.
When it comes to climate change, Uganda has been doing one thing right, and that is maintaining a small carbon footprint. According to the information from Our World in Data, 2017 statistics stood at 0.12 tonnes per capita.
To maintain this status, at the United Nations climate conference of 2015, Uganda pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 22 per cent by the year 2030.
With wildfires blazing through the US, heavy rains accompanied by floods sweeping through Europe, temperatures rising, drought, countries more than ever the world is discussing moves to adopt clean technology to mitigate climate change.
Isabirye further says that the road to Cleantech is still long and beset with a few hurdles, some of which include the lack of public awareness on use, importance, socio-economic and environmental benefits that are derivable from Sustainable energy (SE) and its technologies.
At the implementation level, there is hesitation towards cleantech due to fear of the high initial (upfront) investment and installation costs of SE equipment. Besides these costs, there is still a lack of sufficient technical skills and institutional capacity. The target users of clean energy technology are mostly found in poor rural communities and issues of affordability still loom.