Africa: Efforts Underway to Strike Clean Energy
By Eric Sande
The “Nairobi–Paris Initiative for universal access to clean energy in Africa and in other countries vulnerable to climate change” was launched in April 2011 through a Ministerial International Conference co-chaired by Kenya and France and participated by representatives of 70 countries in Paris.
The focus was on mobilizing financial resources for the production, transmission and distribution of clean energies in the country’s most vulnerable to the climate change especially in Africa by 2030.
It is apparent that insufficient energy ‘electricity’ hinders economic development and poverty reduction in developing countries. An estimate of about 70 per cent of the Africa’s population lacks access to electricity and the poorest pay the highest price for electricity, which is also the least efficient and most polluting. This new partnership will break this vicious cycle and bet on the continent's sustainable development setting 2012 as an international year for energy access.
Regaining investors’ confidence to increasing green energy projects was discussed, with concerns of investing money into projects in Africa which in most cases end up failing. Some of the resources that are in the continent that bring in potential investors were listed like Hydraulics, the wind on the Atlantic coast, geothermal energy in the eastern part and solar potential.
The first step towards the realization of the goals of this initiative are the formation of a pilot group that has to work for a year to make green energy projects attractive to investors. The focus is on strengthening administration and local communities’ capacities to manage such projects as well as the definition of adequate models of political governance.
"We need to establish a regulatory and legislative framework that secures production and prices, reassures investors and protects consumers" said Elham Ibrahim, commissioner of energy and infrastructure of the African Union.
One of the reasons why renewable energies do not go beyond the pilot project stage in Africa, "is also because the continent distributes the largest part of subsidies to fossil fuels," said Monique Barbut, President of the Global Environment Facility. The challenge is even greater when it comes to financing large infrastructure and a myriad of small village projects, whose low scale puts off traditional investors. 85 per cent of Africans live without electricity live in rural areas and 225 million of them live on less than $ 1 per day.
"The starting point is not the climate but poverty," explains Peter Radanne, co-author of the White Paper and consultant to many African countries. If we finance solar panels which do not generate activities and income, people cannot afford to pay bills, nothing will be maintained, and in ten years, we will start from scratch."
Africa received only 2 per cent from the clean development mechanism established by the Kyoto Protocol. Today, the continent doesn't want to lose the funds promised by the Northern countries during the Copenhagen conference on climate in 2009: 30 billion euros by 2012 and 100 billion euros a year for the green fund. Therefore, to defend its interests, the continent decided to get involved in this new partnership.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), some $ 36 billion are necessary each year to provide universal access to "modern energy" by 2030. Now, less than 1 per cent of total investment in clean technologies in the world goes to Africa while the continent has the greatest potential in renewable energy which will act as a lever for local economic development.
The next meeting under the initiative will be held in Nairobi in February 2012. In the meantime, a “pilot group” should “stimulate reflection and dialogue between different actors.”