HOW CLEAN IS AFRICA’S CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION AT COP23?

Many African countries are enmeshed in the crisis of pursuing two different ends. Though CET is catching on in some communities, it is still on cruise control as such their so-called Clean Energy Transition (CET) is a rudderless ship. In most of these communities, the way of doing business has not really changed in terms of businesses' goal for the environment. At best, Africa’s Clean Energy Transition will minimise resource extraction by maximising reuse and recycling. Given the present state of consumption, CET is not the 'cure-all' for our resource depletion seeing that we are not recycling to the extent required. CET can only be achieved through innovations in technology that are capable of promoting resource efficiency at the lower echelon of the society.

Though the continent is opening up to clean businesses, different consumers are driven by the shortfall in energy generation to deploy different renewable energy technologies locally lacking any clear vision for the future. With this, the so-called eco-effectiveness in resource deployment sought in the low carbon drive might be a mirage. It is, indeed, a charade because large-scale biomass consumption and exploitation of resources will continue to give Africa an adverse carbon footprint while large agri-businesses will continue to exploit nature for shareholder returns. Dematerialising Africa production is inevitable, but dematerialising nature will mean finding alternative sources of energy, through clean energy technologies that are not carbon intensive and do not compete with food crops for land.

Exit from this dilemma should be focused on the growth of African economies towards eco-friendly technologies and eco-efficient utilisation of available natural resources. This goes beyond the current business as usual ‘brown’ resource intensive development path. Forging a post-petroleum society should be the ultimate goal of any post-Paris initiative. COP23 promises of addressing the gaps in NDC implementation cannot and will not eradicate shortfall in Africa’s commitments. This goes beyond political rhetoric to concrete climate action aligned with the needs of the poor. Until then, the mirage of CET will serve only one purpose: extracting climate reparation in the form of climate finance. A fundamental reordering is necessary, but it must be with a strong emphasis on the poor and their livelihood.

Africa's new economic blueprint should use less of market-based instruments for ecosystem protection. Pushing the continent's consumption and production towards greener technologies is the ultimate responsibility of the people, therefore relying on cultural institutions is inevitable. Such a transformation may be tainted by the rejuvenation of post-colonial era relations and its associated pillage. A shift in the present architecture will require carefully crafted policies aimed at aligning markets towards our environmental resources goals. Governments should still play a strong leadership role by creating individual incentives (including negative ones) to align consumption and production decisions with significant economic and environmental consequences. They should realign institutional incentives to facilitate the achievement of the goal of economic development while simultaneously bringing about equitable consumption of natural resources.

Although clean development is an inspiring climate-resilient action, COP23 will not totally guarantee lock-in on decarbonisation nor can it really stem future energy shocks. Since Africa is at the bottom of the energy ladder, the quest to leapfrog low carbon development on the back of externally driven technologies is delusional. It is illusory for the mere fact that exogenous technology is not vested in promoting the indigenous technology. Rather, endogenous technologies are the main growth drivers. To catalyse growth, Africa must build its technological base to confront its rising need for clean technology. Skill is important in this shift to clean energy because skills determine the level of innovations in a country (For instance, India and China are leading the charge to CET from within). Africa must, therefore, build its capacity to face technological innovations. Clean development in the post-Kyoto era will create incentives for energy efficiency and renewables deployment. Grid parity for renewable energy is an efficient approach to limiting negative aspects of clean development.

Other measures to improve CET include eco-taxes and eco-labeling, establishing a National Clean Energy Fund to maintain biodiversity loss, deployment of High Efficiency Low Emission (HELE) technologies as critical components of fossil extraction, promotion of co-firing and co-generation to reduce intermittency challenges, improvement of grid evacuation capacity, large investment from public-private partnership for off-grid power generation, subsidies to encourage private dominance of renewable and requesting distribution companies to purchase set quotas of renewable energy. If all these measures are put in place Africa's clean energy transition will take shape.

All said, the CET is slowly catching on, with different communities embracing renewable energy, but it lacks government's leadership role. This should not be the case. Yes, governments should play a key leadership role to ensure synergistic integration of different renewables into the national development policy. Since most governments have not put in place durable structures for CET they are merely singing the praises of the clean economy gaining momentum, while in reality, CET is on cruise control. It is on cruise control because deployment of renewable technology is a 'free for all' with different technologies proliferating without any form of standardisation. At face value, there is a semblance of success with so many communities engaged in one form of clean energy development or the other. However, success in the transition to a clean energy future is not going to be measured on the basis of what governments choose to value, think or say about the CET. Success will be measured by the availability of clean energy to the poor and how much greener the economies of rural communities are made to be. Ultimately, then, success will be determined by how the ordinary people key into the global decarbonisation initiative of COP23 and the willingness of fossil industries to allow Africa's vast green infrastructure propel the continent towards a green civilisation.