Prof Manubhai Shah, managing trustee of the Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC), is attending the two-day 'Regional Forum on Effective Campaigning for Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Consumption', which began in Seoul.
At the said forum, Shah would present a paper 'Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Consumption - Deregulation of and Competition in the Power Sector: Lessons from US Experience'. He has just completed a month-long study tour of American and British electricity projects, said a CERC press release.
The forum is being organised by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and Citizens' Alliance for Consumer Protection of Korea (CACPK). The main objective of this forum is to strengthen national capabilities in achieving environmentally sound and sustainable development. It also seeks improved access to energy service to the underprivileged sections of society.
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The release said Shah's paper underlines the fact that the US authorities want to encourage competition in the generation and distribution of electricity on one hand and want to ensure that electricity tariff does not go out of reach of the common man and does not lead to interruption in supply of power, outages and power quality, on the other.
"They also feel that since electricity cost does not constitute a large proportion of family budget, let the focus shift from cost reduction to environment protection, technically called climate change," it added.
The deliberations at the Forum are expected to empower non-government and government organisations in the Asian and Pacific region to deal with energy matters in relation to a clean environment.
ESCAP, the United Nations organisation, has been associated with CACPK to spread effective campaign engineering for the energy sector. Participants in the forum would also share information on their respective national energy efficiency campaign concepts and their experiences on assistance needs.