3 Energy Transition in Africa: Context, Barriers and Strategies
95
3.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions
African countries have created time-specific development blueprints
setting out aggressive social, economic and environmental targets.
Equally, they have made commitments to varied energy-related goals and
plans at national, regional and global levels. They have also tendered
their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the
UNFCCC process as immortalized in the Paris Agreement. As seen in
Sect. 3.3, various obstacles stand in the way of these countries, achieving
their ambitions of economic development and universal access to energy
while diminishing GHGs. This section will thus discuss plausible strategies and solutions to those barriers.
3.4.1 Mitigation Strategies
Global economic growth and development over the last two centuries
have been powered by fossil fuel-based energy. So vital is modern
energy to economic development that it has been included as goal 7
in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Africa is now in its
economic transition, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It also
has unexploited and newly discovered fossil fuel reserves.
The extent to which African countries should thus utilize their fossil
fuel reserves in the wake of climate change has been a source of great
debate with the larger international community calling for the abandonment of the reserves while the African countries question the fairness
of such abandonment considering their minimal contribution to the
climate crisis.
87
It is evident that the continent cannot chart the same carbon-intensive
growth path that the larger international community did without serious
climatic ramifications. On the other hand, any stranding of Africa’s fossil
fuel reserves will have crippling economic impacts. There is, therefore
87 Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins, ‘The Geographical Distribution Of Fossil Fuels Unused
When Limiting Global Warming To 2 °C’ (2015) Vol 517, Nature.
95
3.4 Countermeasures and Suggestions
African countries have created time-specific development blueprints
setting out aggressive social, economic and environmental targets.
Equally, they have made commitments to varied energy-related goals and
plans at national, regional and global levels. They have also tendered
their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the
UNFCCC process as immortalized in the Paris Agreement. As seen in
Sect. 3.3, various obstacles stand in the way of these countries, achieving
their ambitions of economic development and universal access to energy
while diminishing GHGs. This section will thus discuss plausible strategies and solutions to those barriers.
3.4.1 Mitigation Strategies
Global economic growth and development over the last two centuries
have been powered by fossil fuel-based energy. So vital is modern
energy to economic development that it has been included as goal 7
in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Africa is now in its
economic transition, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It also
has unexploited and newly discovered fossil fuel reserves.
The extent to which African countries should thus utilize their fossil
fuel reserves in the wake of climate change has been a source of great
debate with the larger international community calling for the abandonment of the reserves while the African countries question the fairness
of such abandonment considering their minimal contribution to the
climate crisis.
87
It is evident that the continent cannot chart the same carbon-intensive
growth path that the larger international community did without serious
climatic ramifications. On the other hand, any stranding of Africa’s fossil
fuel reserves will have crippling economic impacts. There is, therefore
87 Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins, ‘The Geographical Distribution Of Fossil Fuels Unused
When Limiting Global Warming To 2 °C’ (2015) Vol 517, Nature.