The growing tension between energy access and tackling climate change

Much of the attention at COP 26 is focused on emissions reductions and hitting global climate targets. But there’s a simmering underlying tension as the world’s high-income countries make demands on how lower-income countries — many of which are home to populations that lack access to energy — can generate electricity. This push and pull between energy access and reducing climate emissions is particularly evident on the African continent, where nearly 600 million people still lack access to energy. The debate is central to the much-touted idea of a “just transition” to clean energy. For many lower-income nations, it feels as if their wealthier counterparts are asking them to delay their industrialization and growth because of the global push for net-zero. Meanwhile, it’s those lower-income nations that will likely be hit hardest by climate change. “For the transition to be just and inclusive, it has to take into account energy poverty,” Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, told Devex. Europe and the United States are advising the World Bank — the largest financier of infrastructure in Africa — not to finance new fossil fuel projects on the continent. But at the same time, Europe and the U.S. continue to rely on oil and gas for their own energy needs, Moore said. “The idea that in the West, gas is part of energy security, but a climate problem in Africa, is an ethically and politically untenable position,” said Todd Moss, executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub. The transition must be paced and phased in a way that “is less hurtful,” including a potential gradual graduation from natural gas, said Ahunna Eziakonwa, regional director for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme. “You need to constantly keep in mind that one action shouldn’t lead to deepening poverty,” she said. A delicate balance Energy is not only important at the household level but for health, education, and economic growth, many experts argue. And on the African continent, in addition to the hundreds of millions of people who lack access to electricity, about 917 million lack access to clean cooking fuels and technology. What is also clear from the latest International Panel on Climate Change report is the scale of the world’s climate crisis. “Like all transitions, there is going to be tension because you've got millions of people who lack access to energy,” Eziakonwa said. “At the same time we have a planet to protect, issues of climate change threaten to decimate lives and livelihoods. So how do we balance this?” That is a particularly complex challenge in Africa because “it’s not as simple as saying just exit fossil fuel production” she said, adding that a rapid exit from fossil fuel exports would be the world putting a cap on a “lifeline for countries.” The tension “requires collective attention to look at what every country’s pathway to transition” and figuring out how it can be fair and just, Eziakonwa said. The problem’s complexity has led to hesitance to even start talks because it’s not something that can be “discussed and resolved during a roundtable or panel,” said Astria Fataki, the founder and president of Energy Generation, an organization that works to empower youth to solve Africa’s access to energy challenges. “It's too late to try to kind of fix at the margin the actual system,” she said. The key question is whether it’s “possible to completely rethink the model” and have an intense collective financing effort. “The idea that in the West, gas is part of energy security, but a climate problem in Africa, is an ethically and politically untenable position.” --— Todd Moss, executive director, Energy for Growth Hub Another aspect of the challenge is how energy access is defined — which translates to which potential solutions are considered viable options. Too often, energy access is reduced to solar lanterns or small home systems that will power a lightbulb and provide household lighting. But African countries also need power industrialization and job growth, Moss said. Some 70% of energy is used outside people’s homes, and energy access discussions must also include “energy for growth,” he said. Every country needs “abundant, reliable electricity,” and currently, energy use is extraordinarily imbalanced worldwide. For example, Americans use more energy for video games than the whole country of Kenya uses in general, Moss said, and the average person in Nigeria, Tanzania, or Ethiopia consumes less electricity than the average American refrigerator. The roughly 1 billion people living in the 48 African countries outside of South Africa are responsible for about 0.55% of global emissions, he added. “They bear zero responsibility but are facing the most vulnerability because they are poor, they have no energy, air conditioning, desalination,” Moss said. “They have the least infrastructure to withstand extreme weather.” Climate-friendly energy solutions? The challenge begs the question of whether there are climate-friendly or renewable energy solutions that can both tackle energy access and address the climate crisis. Or, as some experts told Devex, can Africa leapfrog other nations to systems designed for renewables rather than fossil fuels? But this idea that Africa has the best opportunity to move directly to renewables because most of the continent doesn’t have legacy fossil fuel infrastructure won’t work, Moore said, because technology and storage are not yet cost-effective and efficient. Furthermore, most African countries can’t afford that solution, and fossil fuels are generally much cheaper, he added. “Because renewable energy is not widely applicable” and won’t be for “a decade at best. It seems the request is for Africa to put industrialization, growth on hold because of the transition to net-zero,” Moore said. Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo recently wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs, titled “The Divestment Delusion,” saying that banning fossil fuel investments would “crush Africa.” One of the key challenges is that countries will need seasonal storage for energy — not just enough for a few hours per day. Until technology is developed and prices drop, systems that use natural gas are necessary as a backup, Moss said. “[High-income countries committing billions to a trillion-dollar problem] seems like virtue signaling to create an impression of something being done when something is not being done.” --— Gyude Moore, senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development If sub-Saharan Africa tripled electricity production with natural gas, it would still only account for 0.6% of global emissions, a move which “doesn’t mean much globally,” he said. But countries won’t only rely on gas — many will have hydro, wind, and solar powers, and will need gas to fill the gaps, Moss said. “There are effectively no mitigation benefits in blocking gas projects, and the benefits are tremendous,” he said. Emission changes would make a much bigger global impact in Europe, China, and other large emerging markets, but don’t factor as much for Africa, he said. An opportunity Not all experts are quite so pessimistic about the challenges of striking a balance between energy needs and climate change demands. Ashvin Dayal, senior vice president of the Power & Climate Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, said there is an “opportunity to turn the tension into synergy.” What’s needed — and what’s already beginning to happen — is that the world needs to wake up to the opportunity of off-grid or distributed energy solutions that will be key to addressing energy needs. The challenge with off-grid energy projects is that they are rarely commercially financially viable — though Dayal says that may be changing. The foundation has done a pilot project that shows that through organized pooled procurement the costs can be reduced, and is looking at how it can help bring together a number of companies through a common equipment financing program. A pilot in Nigeria showed a 20-30% reduction in costs, Dayal said. The industry needs technology, policy, and financial support “but there are healthy signs of the market and individual companies moving forward with success on the commercial side,” he said. “What’s needed is defragmentation,” which is why the foundation is organizing an alliance that will work together to de-risk the investments and scale collectively, Dayal said. The alliance will launch at COP 26. Renewables are still an intermittent form of power. But global investments in developing technology that make it cheaper and support the regulatory and legal landscape for it to scale can speed up the ability for it to provide a stable source of energy, Eziakonwa said. UNDP is working to de-risk local markets by fixing regulatory barriers to ensure market openness and attractiveness, she said. It is also working with countries to review public finance priorities and redirect fossil fuel subsidies to investments that support the SDGs. The path forward There is no denying that climate change is here and will only get worse, but different countries have different energy endowments, especially for infrastructure — and what’s needed for those with less capacity is a divergent path, even if forging that middle path is difficult, Moore said. The conversation at COP 26 around emissions reduction shouldn’t apply to sub-Saharan African countries, which shouldn’t be asked to make a choice not to increase energy generation to support high growth industrialization and reduce poverty, he said. The world’s high-income countries need to respond to the climate crisis with the same levels of spending they did to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and spend trillions rather than a few billion dollars here and there, he said. When they commit billions to a trillion-dollar problem, Moore said, “it seems like virtue signaling to create an impression of something being done when something is not being done.” Low-income countries could form a coalition and negotiate from a “disciplined position on these issues and might extract a more equitable outcome,” he suggested. But even so, low-income countries are facing a “string of broken promises” and should “proceed from the assumption that their high income counterparts are negotiating in bad faith. They have never kept their word, and LICs shouldn’t think they will now,” Moore said. So what are the possible solutions? For starters, Moore suggests a blanket ban on coal and a transitional role for natural gas. In addition, the world’s low-income countries should be allowed to build resilience through natural gas investments up to a point, and countries should be provided with resources to build new facilities with the same incentives to build renewables as they receive for fossil fuels, according to Moore. “What we would really like to see are real commitments to Africa in the next year or two to help deliver a high energy future for Africans,” Moss said. People just want to fund wind and solar, but that’s not going to be enough to support all of Africa’s infrastructure needs. What’s needed are smart flexible grids, storage, and a range of technologies, he said. A key component in the energy transition discussion in Africa should be human capital and training and improving local expertise to develop technologies and solutions that are “tailor made for the continent,” Fataki said. Increasing manufacturing of solar panels on the continent, training and employing youth in these fields, can reduce the carbon footprint of projects and address development needs, she added There are no easy answers to addressing these dual challenges. “If you have that continuing imbalance where what is available to some is not available to others then you continue to have a flawed system here,” Fataki said. What’s needed is “global solidarity in understanding climate justice and fairness.”