Country: El Salvador
Committee: Environmental
Topic: Renewable Energy
Delegate: Elleah Berger
School: Williamston High School
It is the 21st century, yet many countries still heavily rely on non renewable energy sources, polluting the earth to fuel themselves. The switch from non renewable to renewable energy is hard and costly, but it needs to be done. Unclean and non renewable energy sources have taken many negative tolls on the environment, such as pollution of the air, water, and land, acid rain, and oil spills. A 2018 study showed that 9 out of 10 people breathe polluted air, and in 2015, 1.8 million people died due to water pollution. Unsafe water sickens about 1 billion people annually. This is a whole world problem that can be solved with the help of the United Nations and global participation and openness to solutions.
El Salvador has done a lot to help with water accessibility, as more than 60% of her energy comes from clean and renewable sources. El Salvador has created many power plants that use clean and renewable energy sources, and has many more underway. In February of this year, a contract was signed that guarantees legal stability for investments in the Ventus Project, which is El Salvador’s first wind park, and will cover the electricity demand of 80,000 homes. In 2017, the largest photovoltaic plant in Central America began operations in the municipality of El Rosario (La Paz), and outputs 101 megawatts, which is equal to the energy consumption of 200,000 homes. El Salvador also has many projects set for 2021 and before, like a natural gas plant in Acajutla, with a capacity of 380 megawatts, and a wind, solar, and natural gas plant that will add 624.2 megawatts to the installed capacity.
El Salvador has taken the necessary steps to reduce the pollution of the earth by using mainly clean and renewable energy sources, but is still trying to become more eco friendly with her energy. El Salvador encourages other countries to do the same and proposes a solution to help them do so. El Salvador feels that countries of similar status or position should learn from other countries in a similar position on how they were successful. That way, they could learn from the mistakes of the successful country and start off with what worked well. El Salvador believes that this will help countries deal with the presented problem in the quickest and best way possible. El Salvador would recommend to smaller, poorer countries like herself, to take smaller steps with the money available at the time.
- Elleah Berger
