Energy from the sun is free and we are not utilising that to an obvious solution to decarbonize our world, says a manufacturing tycoon Mark One Apparel managing director Mark Halabe.
He called on the corporate leaders and individuals to jump into renewable energy such as solar.
Mr Halabe also challenged them not to wait for government assistance and take the lead role in this direction.
During an interview on The Fiji Times online news portal The Lens@177, Mr Halabe said some high ended companies had jumped into it now and others must do it as well.
“For Fiji, we are blessed with a lot of sunshine,” Mr Halabe said.
“And our focus on the bigger picture should be on how we get renewable energy and a big part of that will be solar.
“We have now hydro, and that’s about 40 per cent of our usage in the country. But we can have a lot more renewable if we focus on solar.”
He said the other option could be developing energy through waves.
“There’s now a technology being built up that as the waves pick up, we can develop energy as well.
“And that is the logical way that the world must go and Fiji must follow.
“Fiji is going to COP29 and saying we need your money to help us for the damage you’ve caused us.
“Sure, we’re tiny, we don’t contribute much to the world’s climate change, but we’re not doing much on our side. So the optics aren’t very good.”
Mr Halabe said we also need to focus on saving our species.
“The world will be fine without humans. If humans are destroyed for our own ignorance in dealing with climate change, the mother nature will take care of itself in the millions and millions of years ahead of us.
“If we’re serious about dealing with this problem, the leaders must also focus on the need to help us move forward on that issue.”
