Cyprus: hope for a better future?

Talks are underway on the future of Cyprus. The island has been divided since the Greek inspired coup and Turkish invasion of 1974. The new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is hopeful of a solution. There is much pain, fear and insecurity to overcome. The slow process of finding and identifying bodies from the 1974 war is continuing. Lots of complex issues need to be resolved to the satisfaction of both the Greek Cypriot community and the Turkish Cypriot community and then both communities need to ratify the process by referendum.

It might be helpful to the peace process if both sides had some joint projects that were future orientated and which could provide a positive shared goal to work towards. Currently Cyprus gets most of its electricity from expensive to run old heavy fuel oil power stations such as those at Dhekelia, Moni and Vasilikos. Cyprus has a wonderful sunny climate and would be an ideal location to experiment with moving the entire energy system of the island to run on solar power, for electricity, heating, cooling and for transport. Local pollution and carbon emissions could be cut and new forms of employment created. It would provide a future vision that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could shape together. Grant funding might be available to get some projects up and running, but many projects would be cost effective from day one. Many of the innovative solar and energy storage technologies I write about on this blog could be developed in Cyprus.

Of course the future of Cyprus is up to the people who live on the island. I wish them well in these negotiations. Reconciliation will be slow and complex, but it can happen. They have much to share with the people of Northern Ireland, Columbia, South Africa, Bosnia and many other places. Coming to terms with past pain needs to be balanced with hope for a better, shared future.