Biggest carbon footprint here

Cabinet minister Mark Brown told Pacific media on Saturday that the Cook Islands has the biggest carbon footprint per capita of any other island country in the Pacific.

He was speaking to journalists about government’s investments in energy production, explaining that diesel is one of the country’s highest overall costs.

”We have the biggest carbon footprint of any country in the Pacific – it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the world (but the biggest) on a per capita basis.“

Brown explained that the Cook Islands government is pursuing a renewable energy programme to ease the burden of paying $10 million per annum for diesel to generate electricity.

Brown acknowledged that the high cost of electricity is a ”big hindrance in economic development“, and that electricity is second only to wages in terms of a company’s expenses.

The issue of energy independence fits into a wider economic context, he said.

Should the cost of energy fall, outer islanders might be more inclined to stay and work on their islands.

The biggest challenge for government, he said, is financing a move toward energy independence.

”Our challenge is to sell this idea of energy efficiency and move towards being totally reliant on renewable energy to our development partners who are very keen on this sort of thing,“ he said. ”We’ve come a long way in less than two years in terms of our negotiations and discussions with the international community (about energy).“