Daily Times

The argument that the 21st Century belongs to Asia is no longer a distant reality. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has opened up six corridors, spanning Asia, Europe and Africa. The BRI is expected to lead to the socio-economic development of these regions thus integrating societies, converging civilisations, uniting communities and shifting power from elites to the masses. These changes are expected to create prospects for more jobs and an increased growth rate. Due to rising economic activity in Asia, there is correlation of energy consumption and economic growth. In the backdrop of unprecedented population and economic growth, energy consumption level has exponentially increased in these years and renewable energy has become gap filler in energy calculus of Asian nations.

This is mainly due to the fact that climate change is rising substantially over time. Greenhouse gasses are detrimental to the environment that impose irreversible damage and severely impact human life. As per UN estimates, greenhouse gasses emission must be cut by 70 percent by 2050 if we are to avoid the catastrophic change to our planet’s climate system. However, Asian developing countries face impediments in meeting their growing energy demands without extensively contributing to global warming. The enduring solution to this challenge involves the use of nuclear energy. That is why there are 31 countries that operate nuclear power program and 40 percent of them are developing countries. There are 14 reported states that are planning to initiate nuclear power programs.

Pakistan is an emerging economy that needs to bridge gap between energy supply and demand. Pakistan wants to secure energy to preserve human security in the backdrop of climate change, rising heat wave and for sustainable socio-economic growth and research and development. Indeed it offers a greater capacity factor, lower cost and environmentally safe source to Pakistan. Pakistan’s growing population and rising economy in the milieu of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and connectivity with BRI countries, it seems that gap between demand and supply is set to rise.

Asian developing countries face impediments in meeting their growing energy demands without extensively contributing to global warming

What is worrisome for Pakistan is that it still heavily relies on fossil fuel that is not an appropriate plan for long term socio-economic growth. Many of the environmental problems that Pakistan faces today are the outcome of fossil fuel dependence. Pakistan needs to invest extensively on understanding issues related to global warming that is a major emerging threat to our national security. We must take these issues to our universities and academic institutions for scientific inquiry in order to find out sustainable solutions. The entire world is moving away from fossil fuel to clean energy, thus Pakistan should not adopt the reverse course of action.

Pakistan is tapping energy from diversified sources including renewable sources such as hydro, wind, bio-gas, and solar energy which are inadequate in their potential. Pakistan’s existing volume of nuclear energy production is also limited. The net capacity of Pakistan’s KANUP 1, Chashma 1 and 2 reactors is 600-700MW combined, which amount to 4.3 percent of the total energy mix. These nuclear power plants are not enough to bridge energy supply and demand gap. Pakistan, therefore, in 2008 announced to install another two nuclear power plants to its national grid that are C-3 and C-4 with the capacity of 300MW each. Pakistan later announced in June 2013 that two 1,000MW class reactors would be installed as K-2 and K-3 that are expected to be finalised by 2020 and 2021, respectively. The fastest and cheapest way of dealing with the country’s power crisis is building K-2 and K-3 nuclear power plants. The K-2 and K-3 projects are an undeniable need for Pakistan as in recent times the production of electricity is far less than the demand. Pakistan aims are producing electricity up to 40,000MW by 2050. Contention is that Pakistan has to revisit its clean energy vision to increase its capacity to mitigate rising challenges and to match 21st century demands in terms of economies and technologies.

Indeed, due to economic and technological ineffectiveness, Pakistan cannot follow through indigenous plans for nuclear energy development without global outreach. In the backdrop of BRI and CPEC, Pakistan’s economy has become more integrated and interconnected that is set to grow and its energy demand would also rise with time. Pakistan has to connect electricity across the country to lit its households, allow environment conducive to our educational institutions, farmers and workforce to use energy as a means of production, and for better industrial development and sustainable infrastructure growth. Our quality of life and performance of our workforce correlates to energy consumption in this 21st century and our sustainable growth relates to renewable and clean energy that is cheap and sustainable.

Pakistan has remained diplomatically active for many years to secure membership status in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to reach out to global commerce within global normative framework but the global community is still reviewing Pakistan’s case. However, currently chances of this membership seem potentially bleak in the backdrop of the uneasy relationship between Pakistan and the US. Question arises here; why can’t Pakistan strike a deal with Russia and China similar to the one that India had with the US?

Contention is that Pakistan has got to revisit its diplomatic outreach to get out of technological denial by reengaging the allies on rational and justified grounds. Pakistan’s connectivity with regional thriving economies compels Pakistan to revisit its clean energy vision thereby connecting itself with global and regional forums determined to deal with the challenges associated with climate change. In the backdrop of the above developments, the NSG seems to become losing its legitimacy while time demands substantial revisions in its structure and guidelines and Pakistan must remain active to secure global outreach for energy security for the goodwill of our people and betterment of societies.

The writer received her PhD from the University of Leicester, UK, specialising in international security and nuclear non-proliferation. She is a senior research fellow at the Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad. She can be contacted at rabbasi11@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, October 27^th 2017.