51吃瓜

A commercial solar field in Rwanda. Photo: Sameer Halai/SunFunder/Gigawatt Global

Ms. Cristina Duarte is the Special Adviser of the 51吃瓜 Secretary-General on Africa, a position she holds at the rank of Under-Secretary-General.

It is once again the time of the year when world leaders, climate scientists, negotiators, activists, and other stakeholders gather to take stock of the planet’s future at the UNFCCC’s global climate talks. This November, Egypt will host the 27th Conference of Parties (COP 27) at Sharm El Sheik where participants will review the implementation of the many commitments made to mitigate the looming climate crisis and to add new ones.
 
The planet’s future remains at risk. Yet globally, many countries keep the status quo in terms of energy consumption. Instead of meaningful and deep cuts in emissions, the conversation revolves around alternative solutions for "carbon offsets", and carbon markets as well as providing hefty subsidies for the nominal integration of solar and wind power in their energy mixes.
  
Despite the many pledges, global CO2 emissions continued to rise in 2022 according to the UNFCCC, where preliminary data between January and May 2022 shows that they are “1.2% above the levels recorded during the same period in 2019” (UNFCCC, 2022. ). Moreover, as of 2019, all modern renewables combined (wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels) accounted for 5% of primary global energy consumption, and hydropower and nuclear contributed 6% and 4%, respectively. The rest came from fossil fuels.

Many Africans are considering COP 27 as “Africa’s COP”, while also noting the incredible shifts in tone and narratives in the global energy landscape since COP 26 was held in Glasgow in November 2021. African countries have always been more than willing to embrace a green energy future, what is hanging in the balance is a clear path to such a future.

Africa’s voice and key messages, therefore, need to be pragmatic in Sharm El Sheik, recognizing that without technological breakthroughs to improve reliability, affordability, and ease of distribution, radical shifts to tilt the global energy balance in favour of green energy will take a lot longer than the projections of "net zero" by 2030 or even 2050. 

First, the only viable energy future for Africa is a balanced energy mix

For African countries, energy access is no longer just an equity and economic development issue. It has real and severe implications for the continent’s peace and security, with a growing demand for food, and energy and a young population demanding better futures. Even though Africa is home to 17% of the world’s population, the continent represents only 3.3% of global primary energy consumption, 1.1% of electricity generation and 3% of global energy use in industry. 

Moreover, each African country is at varying stages of its energy journey. Some countries have achieved a 100% electricity access rate, while others are well below 50%. Some countries already generate over 90% of their energy using green energy resources. There are also countries with large natural gas endowments and economies driven mainly by fossil fuel generation and export. 

It is therefore unconscionable to arm-twist the entire continent into accepting an unrealistic "only renewables from now on" argument, knowing full well that renewables can only be a part of the equation in the path to a sustainable energy future. The continent’s future and its transformation instead lie in a balanced energy mix, if all are truly committed to the principle of “no one left behind.”

A windmill park near Nouakchott in Mauritania. Photo: UNDP Mauritania/Freya Morales.

Second, solar and wind renewable energy is not the "end all, be all" for Africa's energy access 

The dominant assumption in the debate for Africa's renewable future is that Africa's vast untapped potential for solar and wind power can power all its energy needs. In technical terms, Africa's solar power generation potential is immense at 7900 gigawatts and 461 gigawatts for wind energy (assuming a 1% land utilization rate [1]). The possibility is exciting because this is enough to cover the entire world's energy needs, let alone Africa's. Plus, the assumption is that once constructed, the sun and wind are essentially cost-free energy fuels, allowing for capital cost recovery within a few years. However, the devil is in the engineering and technology details.

First, the continent's most significant potential for utility-scale solar and wind generation capacity lies in Northern Africa, within the Sahara Desert. The technical difficulty of developing this potential includes transmitting generated energy over long distances through vastly inaccessible landscapes, via investments in prohibitively expensive high-voltage transmission lines and transformers. Moreover, these power plants need energy/fuel to continuously run the plants' machinery, store, and transport excess power, and use a significant amount of pumped water to clean and cool solar panels. 

As to cost recovery, many countries are hesitant to implement a substantial portion of their energy mix on solar and wind because these technologies provide intermittent power unless they feed a well-established grid. Moreover, the physical equipment (solar panels and wind turbines) has a lifespan of about 30 years under nearly perfect conditions.

Another assumption is that African countries can have a flourishing industry for manufacturing renewable energy components such as solar panels, lithium batteries, and wind turbines using the continent's natural resources for building green sectors. Indeed, Africa has a crucial advantage in this arena. The continent has "over 40% of global reserves of cobalt, manganese, and platinum – key minerals for batteries and hydrogen technologies." [2] 

However, these industries for value addition and processing need constant, affordable, reliable energy to get off the ground. More critically, financing is more readily available for investments to export them away from the continent, not to add value to them on the continent.
To further complicate the issue, IRENA reports that "during 2018, three-quarters of patents related to the renewable energy sector were filed in just four countries (China, the United States, Japan, and Germany). To date, few African countries have managed to successfully integrate the high-value-added segments of renewable energy value chains and generate associated jobs." [3] 

This is not to say that solar and wind energy do not have a place in Africa's energy mix and national energy plans. According to the World Economic Forum, Africa already generates 9% of its energy from renewable resources, with plans for more capacity underway. Decentralized off-grid renewable power systems provided 38 million people in East Africa alone between 2009-2019 with solar lighting and solar home systems. Indeed, supplying the 600 million Africans with electricity for their domestic needs will mostly come down to off-grid and mini-grid renewable energy systems. 

However, to realize Africa's economic transformation and job creation potential, the focus needs to shift to what needs to be strengthened, harmonized, and built in the energy sector, all tailored to national priorities and realities. Some action items towards this end include: 

• investments in infrastructure such as national and regional grid networks. 
• increasing the efficiency of transmission and distribution networks. 
• research and development for energy storage technologies specific to African contexts. 
• harmonizing regulatory frameworks, and
• strengthening power providers and utilities.

All these are reasons why a blanket ban on one or more energy sources or a 100% shift of investments toward renewables based on solar and wind alone is counterproductive.

Third, the misconception of the "stranded asset" argument

One of the arguments against African countries developing their natural gas resources [4] is the issue of "stranded assets." Proponents argue that as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, Africa's investment in natural gas will become a liability before the end of their useful lifespans. 

But this lens is flawed for two reasons. First, African countries are portrayed solely as exporters of their resources, not consumers. This mentality is perpetuated in some circles because financing is mostly "readily" available to develop a resource/commodity to satisfy demand, usually outside the continent. However, with Africa's industrial, agricultural, and domestic demand for electricity and transportation projected to increase, long-term planning and investment should look at intra-continental consumption and markets in addition to using Africa's natural resources to generate revenue from outside the continent.

Second, tragically, the available data shows that fossil fuels represent 84% of global energy consumption [5]. Even if the world radically transitions to renewable energy, the demand for natural gas will most likely decrease gradually. Its use as a transition fuel and a cleaner backup fuel to counter the intermittency of solar and wind power will remain for the next 25-30 years, short of significant and cost-practical improvements. 

These two considerations counter the "stranded assets" argument because the life span of natural gas pipelines is at most 50 years and that of gas turbines is about 30 years. As uncomfortable as this truth is, natural gas will most likely be a part of the global energy mix for the foreseeable future. In this scenario, the demand for Africa's gas resources can be turned inwards in the long term, proportionally to an eventual decrease in demand from abroad.

Planet Earth. View from outer space at night. Adobe Stock

Forth, Africans need a realistic picture of energy/climate financing 

At the 2009 COP, rich countries promised to mobilize an additional $100 billion annually in climate finance for developing countries. Not only has this figure never been reached, but little of the billions also reported as climate funding is new, and Africa’s share has been less than a third of what has been made available. Indeed, expectations of massive flexible transfers from rich countries to enable developing countries to invest in their climate futures is at best, misleading. 

In reality, the current investment and implementation rate for energy access is very slow. Africa currently accounts for just 4% of global power supply investment, and even this is concentrated in a handful of countries across the continent. Achieving reliable electricity supply for all would require an almost fourfold increase to around $120 billion annually through 2040. 

If past performance is an indicator, this number will not magically increase. Moreover, financial markets and private sector actors will not suddenly change their business models to grant concessional financing and reduced profit targets for African energy projects, renewable or otherwise. These are some of the many reasons why domestic resource mobilization, curbing illicit financial flows, and long-term energy planning and investment are vital factors to Africa's energy access and growth.

As the momentum builds to Sharm El Sheik this month, "Africa's COP" should be a forum where the world genuinely hears Africans' concerns. Similarly, African countries should also take lessons from the "Just Energy Transition Partnership to support South Africa's decarbonization," one of the most prominent achievements of COP 26 in November 2021. The initiative promises to mobilize an initial commitment of $8.5 billion for the first phase of financing South Africa's transition. A year later, its practical implementation is still in the works due to the sheer complexity of the negotiations as to where the money is going to come from, how the country will spend it, and the conditionalities that need to be met before accessing the financing [6].