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THE US yesterday announced that it will be contributing $30 million to climate risk insurance initiatives in the Pacific, Central America, and Africa to help small island nations respond to severe climate-related impacts.

At a meeting with leaders of small island nations in the three regions, President Barack Obama said the move was part of a broader set of actions to help vulnerable populations strengthen their climate resilience, from providing climate data, tools and services, to incorporating climate resilience considerations into development assistance.

“The announcement is an important step toward the goal G-7 leaders set this summer to increase by up to 400 million the number of people in the most vulnerable developing countries who will have access to insurance against the negative impact of climate change hazards by 2020,” the WHite House said in a statement to the press yesterday.

The funds will support insurance initiatives under the Pacific Catastrophic Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, expand the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility to include Central American countries, and support the African Risk Capacity programme.

 

Aubyn Hill, Financial Gleaner Columnist
Aubyn Hill, Financial Gleaner Columnist

THIS WEEK, Blue Energy, a British company, announced that it will build Africa’s largest solar power plant in Ghana. By the time it is completed in 2015, the 155-megawatt facility will be the fourth-largest power plant in the world and is expected to supply 20 per cent of the Ghanaian government’s target of generating 10 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Apart from being the second-largest producer and exporter of cocoa in the world, Ghana is a significant producer of oil and, in March, Tullow Oil of London stated that an oilfield it found off the coast was a major find. Still, Ghana has made it easy for this US$400-million investment in solar energy to go ahead. The Nzema project will be situated on 183-hectares (about 403 acres) of land in western Ghana. The Ghanaian government has given the investor a100-year lease, as well as planning and connection permission to the 161kV West African Power Pool transmission line, which links Ghana to the Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.

Int’l investors responded swiftly

The CEO of Blue Energy, Chris Dean, speaking to the