Among those attending the event were the Colombian Minister of Energy and his Brazilian and Argentine counterparts.
The experts participating today in the "II International Conference of the electricity sector in the Euro-American sphere" questioned the Latin American energy model and criticized the lack of use of the region's enormous potential to develop renewable energies.
"Policies on renewable energy are very weak," said Fernando Sánchez-Albavera, head of Natural Resources and Infrastructure at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), after stating that Latin American countries spend "very little" on this sector.
"The regulatory frameworks are very insufficient and the institutional framework for renewables is practically nonexistent," the ECLAC leader told Spanish and Latin American experts on the subject.
Among those in attendance were Colombian Energy Minister Hernán Martínez and the Energy Secretaries of Brazil, Ronaldo Schuck, and Argentina, Daniel Cameron.
Sánchez-Albavera also criticized the lack of "energy efficiency diagnosis" and the lack of awareness, on the part of the countries themselves, of the resources they have.
As an example, the director of the Natural Resources division of ECLAC pointed out that, of the $71.000 billion of global investment in renewable energy in 2006, only $1.000 billion corresponded to Latin America.
The lack of investment in this area was also highlighted by Carmen Fernández Rozano, advisor to the Spanish National Energy Commission, who stressed that Latin America has all kinds of renewable energy but "projects of this type do not reach a sufficient volume."
Although he acknowledged that in many cases these are projects with high investment costs and few incentives, Fernández Rozano insisted on the need to give them greater prominence because they represent fundamental tools to guarantee energy sustainability.
"Latin America has unbeatable opportunities" to develop renewable energy and "it is time" for it to take the lead in this sector, he added.
Government officials also participated in the debates to present the energy landscape of their respective countries.
In the case of Colombia, Minister Hernan Martinez defined his country as "an example of sustainable biofuel production."
What the Colombian government is doing, he said, is focusing on the production of sugar cane and oil palm, without interfering in the jungle and generating thousands of jobs at the same time.
As for Argentina, Energy Secretary Daniel Cameron acknowledged that "we are facing a world that is not energy sustainable" and outlined the main projects developed by his country with alternative energies.
His Brazilian counterpart, Ronaldo Schuck, commented that his country has a privileged position in the region with regard to renewable energy and predicted that this position will improve even further with the implementation of the Growth Acceleration Plan (PAC) announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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