The Deputy Minister of Finance, Jorge Luis Almengor, said that Panama is a carbon-negative country, one of the few countries in the world that has this characteristic. This approach was made at the conference on sustainable development in Central America and Panama organized by the Spanish news agency EFE to commemorate his 50 years of being in Central America.
The official said that he was invited by the EFE news agency as part of the celebration of its 50 years in Central America, using Panama as a platform to develop this important debate on sustainable development, the care for the environment and the opportunities for inclusive growth that the region has, mainly Panama as one of the pioneering countries.
Almengor said that since last year Panama has a Risk Management Cabinet and a national Risk Management policy, as well as public policies for disaster prevention, mitigation and correction.
He assured that it is necessary for society to understand what we are facing and as the Ministry of Economy and Finance it is up to us to establish the financial tools that allow us to deal with that mitigation or risk and today we have resources available in the order of 600 million dollars that would allow us to face an environmental emergency in a very short time.
On the other hand, he said, Panama is a carbon-negative country, one of the few countries in the world that has this characteristic and approximately 60% or 65% of the national territory are forested areas and 30% of the lake and terrestrial territory are natural reserves, which are very important characteristics that we must highlight and to some extent we have to ensure that they are preserved over time.
As a government, the current administration has committed to the decarbonization of the national energy system and in fact two years ago the decision was made to close the last coal-based energy generation plant in which the State was a shareholder and with the premise of meeting the decarbonization targets in 2030. Panama has achieved that this year 95% of the energy produced in the country is generated through clean energy, Almengor said.
He added that: “It is important to participate in these debates because we can transmit some lessons learned during the pandemic and those priorities that we have highlighted through public policies that the government of President Laurentino Cortizo has been promoting, in order to be able to maintain sustainable economic growth and at the same time translate into inclusive development.”
He said that as trustees of a general state budget, it must be allocated more effectively and efficiently to achieve the objectives of improving the socioeconomic conditions of all Panamanians.