Pakistan to attract BRI investment in renewable energy sector

Pakistan has great potential to attract investment being extended under the framework of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the development of its renewable energy sector.

This was stated by a German scholar and Director of the Green BRI Centre Dr. Christoph Nedopil Wang in an article published by Gwadar Pro on Friday. In August, Pakistan set in motion a plan to boost the share of its electric power that comes from renewables to 30% by 2030, up from about 4% today. He suggested that both Pakistan and China should focus on sustainable projects that can bring returns and prepare for a better future, such as renewable energy.

According to Dr Wang, China as a global leader in green finance and renewable development wants BRI to be green. Meanwhile, China has expanded the investment to the member countries in renewable energy sector. China has an outsize impact on development financing for coal. From 2000-2019, its two global policy banks – China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China – issued loans totalling US$51.8 billion for coal energy projects around the world, according to the Global Development Policy Centre at Boston University.

In response, Dr Wang said, the Chinese government has issued guidelines for green investments under BRI. China’s development financing for coal has been in decline since 2017, and new data from the American Enterprise Institute showed that, the share of renewable energy in BRI energy investment has increased year by year from 19.6% in 2014, and surpassed the share of fossil energy investment in 2020. “The recent tendency, South Korea and Japan have shifted away from financing overseas coal power, would not have gone unnoticed in Beijing,” Wang stated.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson of China, Zhao Lijian recently said in a press Conference that, in 2018, China’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP was down by 45.8% from its 2005 level, equivalent to a reduction of 5.26 billion tons of carbon dioxide. China invests more in renewable energy than any other country, with the number of new energy vehicles accounting for more than half of the world’s total.