The St. Vincent Grammar School Young Leaders hosted an energy summit, under the theme, ‘Going Green, Commit to Action, Join the Campaign’, last Tuesday, March 24, at the Peace Memorial Hall.{{more}}

The summit, which is part of the school’s 2009 effort in the national RBTT Young Leaders competition, featured several PowerPoint presentations from governmental and statutory bodies.

President of the Grammar School Young Leaders team, Jesse Morgan said he believes the summit successfully achieved its goals in creating awareness about the global environmental crisis, in particular global warming and in giving clear indications about the roles of various local organisations in attempting to tackle, what he termed, a critical issue.

In his opening remarks, Frank Jones, the school’s Headmaster, applauded the competition’s creator RBTT for choosing this year’s topic, “Going Green”. Jones contended that environmental preservation must begin in the heart. He further commended the members of the school’s 2009 Young Leaders team, saying they’d convinced him of the existence of “fine young men” in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The day’s first speaker, Leonard Deane, representative of the Energy Unit in the Prime Minister’s office, charted SVG’s contribution to global warming, saying per capita, SVG’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels almost match those of some developed nations.

He said the current administration has already put in place several plans to help reduce the country’s dependency on fossil fuel based energy. He cited the creation of bodies such as the National Energy Committee in 2006 and the Energy Unit in 2008 as examples of such plans. The replacement of 200,000 incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent equivalents, he said, also shows the government’s commitment to tackling the environmental crisis head on.

Deane finally urged the audience to take part in the upcoming Earth Hour scheduled for tomorrow, March 28th, at 8.30pm local time. Earth Hour has become an annual event since 2007, during which homes and businesses are urged to switch off their lights for one hour.

Other speakers at the event included Cuthbert Knights, representative from the Ministry of Health and the Environment, Phillip Jackson from the Ministry of Telecommunication, Industry, Science and Technology, Winsbert Quow from the Solid Waste Management Unit and Mitra Malcolm from the St. Vincent Electricity Services Ltd.

The presentations were followed by an open forum during which audience members asked questions or made suggestions. (SC)