- To transition from fossil fuels to cleaner more sustainable energy, we need innovation and new technology.
- The earth has an array of minerals that carry huge energy potential that has little to do with burning.
- The World Bank: Harnessing natural resource wealth provides an opportunity to improve fiscal and debt sustainability of African countries
The race to combat global climate change challenge is offering Africa a fresh opportunity to attract investments in the decarbonization industry as countries adopt clean energy. The known patterns are gone, we now have unpredictable weather changes and ever-so-frequent catastrophic weather events all caused by global climate change.
The effect is desertification where there was vegetation, floods where land was arid, melting glaciers from the North Pole to Kilimanjaro, famine, food insecurity, and disease, all because of the energy we used to industrialize, it is time for the energy transition.
To transition from fossil fuels to cleaner more sustainable energy, we need innovation and new technology and most of all, the raw materials to produce clean energy. Water, wind, and solar are all on the table, and cutting-edge technology is helping to harness the energy potential of these elements.
However, the earth is not done, dirty fossil fuels are not the only source of energy mother earth has to offer, hardly. If anything, it is our science that is behind or slow, but the earth has an array of minerals that carry huge energy potential that has little to do with burning.
In lithium battery, Elon Musk, and Tesla are leading the new edge of clean energy fuel using cobalt and nickel to create a battery that is sleek enough to power your smartwatch and smartphone and strong enough to run your new car for hours.
Elon Musk and Tesla are not the only ones riding this energy transition wave but they are a good example of how and why the energy transition offers Africa enormous economic opportunities.
First, Africa is the source of all known minerals to power up the lithium battery, the largest known deposits of cobalt are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The ongoing and much-needed energy transition gives “…resource-rich governments the opportunity to better leverage natural resources to finance their public programs, diversify their economy, and expand energy access,” says the World Bank.
“Harnessing natural resource wealth provides an opportunity to improve fiscal and debt sustainability of African countries, but this can only happen if countries get policies right and learn the lessons from the past boom and bust cycles,” the Bank warns.
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James Cust, the World Bank Senior Economist said: “metals and minerals will be needed in larger quantities for low carbon technologies like batteries—and with the right policies—could boost fiscal revenues, increase opportunities for regional value chains that create jobs, and accelerate economic transformation.”
The positive effect of capitalizing on these clean energy minerals is already paying off in several African countries. Take the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which has, in recent years, had an exemplary economic performance growing its domestic output by 5.2 percent, 6.7 percent, and 8.6 percent respectively since 2020.
“In the DRC, the mining sector was the main driver of growth due to an expansion in capacity and recovery in global demand,” explains the economist.
In fact, according to the World Bank, countries could potentially more than double the average revenues that they currently collect from natural resources.
The WB advised that to make the most of these minerals, then African countries should invest in their private sector through sound policies, reforms, and good governance.
“Maximizing government revenues derived from natural resources would offer a double dividend for people and planet by increasing fiscal space and removing implicit production subsidies,” explains the World Bank specialist.
However, at the moment; “unfavorable global financial conditions have increased borrowing costs and debt service costs in Africa, diverting money from badly needed development investments and threatening macro-fiscal stability.”
Even though Africa contributes only less than 4 percent, the continent carries the heaviest burden of climate change effects. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is not taking responsibility yet Africa has very little adaptation and resilience aid or funding.
“Adaptation and resilience play a huge disservice to the continent’s potential to play a crucial role in the planet’s climate future,” the expert admits.
Africa has huge potential in reversing the effects of climate change and achieving zero emissions and driving climate restoration.
Here is an interesting way to look at it, because Africa doesn’t have what can only be called an “old economy” it means that the continent can redo its economic method of output and work towards decarbonizing.
“Africa can invest right away in the green economy that we need — an economy that’s net positive for the planet and the people,” Cust points out.
Also, Africa has a very large and very young population, huge scales of land, and various natural resources, it is also endowed with huge amounts of untapped renewable energy.
“If properly deployed, these assets could be crucial in driving global mitigation efforts, while creating new economic opportunities for the continent,” he adds.
Reinforcing the fact, the Climate Action Platform for Africa (CAP-A) noted that by leveraging these assets to combat climate change, then Africa can follow three distinct pathways that Africa can follow.
- Africa can follow a low/free emissions growth path by leapfrogging directly to green pathways without legacy energy and agricultural assets
- Employing the latest sustainable technologies and business models for consumption and production. Some may view this as a prohibition against allowing Africa to use fossil fuels for its growth.
- Adopting sustainable technologies to offer improved climate change resilience for the continent more than other alternatives.
“Importantly, if African countries were to grow to middle-income status with a similar emission per capita as current middle-income countries, we can forget about keeping peak warming below 1.5 degrees,” warns the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
“We need to invest in a Just Energy Transition for Africa that is not just about moving from emitting to clean sources but is also about the urgent need to provide access to modern energy for all those who currently lack it,” the UN urges.
Global investments to develop Africa’s tremendous renewable energy potential could allow us to reach our energy access and economic growth ambitions, while also avoiding massive future stranded assets.
We can extend this thinking beyond just power generation, to include other major emitting sectors such as transportation and construction, where Africa’s share of global activity is growing rapidly, and where sustainable new technologies could quickly scale up in the absence of older and dirtier technologies.
