US willing to help PH transition to renewables: Sherman

FILE: S Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is in DFA today for a courtesy call on SFA @teddyboylocsin. (Photo: @DFAPHL/Twitter)

MANILA – The United States is ready to support the Philippines in its shift to renewable energy, a ranking State Department official said Thursday.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman acknowledged that governments across the world, including the Philippines, are trying to transition to renewables.

“Clean energy is something that is critical for the entire world, for the security of our planet. It is a topic of conversation in every government discussion I have everywhere in the world,” she told reporters in a media roundtable.

“Governments are trying to transition to renewables, to wind, to solar, to safe and effective small modular nuclear reactors. All of this takes a transition and the United States is very happy to work with governments to bring any technical assistance, experts we have to help think through how to make that transition,” she added.

Meanwhile, she deferred to the team of President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when asked if the latter raised his plans to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) during their bilateral meeting on Thursday.

“I’m not going to talk about specifics that the President raised, I’ll let him tell you what he discussed,” she said.

“All I can say is from my side, we talked about all of the elements of a clean energy future and the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which the Philippines joined,” she added.

Marcos mentioned that part of his energy agenda is to revive the BNPP to become an additional source of clean and cheap power.

Earlier, the Department of Energy said a legal framework is needed to allow the government to invest in nuclear power plants.