Essay by Eric Worrall
Do you think there might be a connection?
Africa’s climate change balancing act: green energy vs economic development
Published: January 17, 2025 11.50pm AEDT
Oluwafikayo Akeredolu
PhD Candidate, University of Oxford…
I research climate finance and investigated what drives sub-Saharan Africa’s climate ambitions. I also wanted to find out whether wealthier sub-Saharan African nations were more likely to prioritise economic development over aggressive climate commitments than the region’s more impoverished nations.
…I found that wealthier sub-Saharan African nations (measured by gross domestic product per capita) show lower levels of climate ambition. Nigeria and South Africa, for instance, are wealthier than many others in Africa. But they’re under political and economic pressure to expand energy access and industrial capacity. This can limit them from curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s clear from my study that gross domestic product per capita was the only statistically significant determinant of climate ambition among sub-Saharan African countries. This reveals how economic priorities often shape countries’ climate commitments.
…I have several recommendations based on my findings.
…
Third, renewable energy must be promoted, particularly through investments in solar, wind, and hydropower. The region’s natural resources must be used to move countries away from fossil fuels.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/africas-climate-change-balancing-act-green-energy-vs-economic-development-244758
…
The referenced paper;
African climate politics and multilateralism: Domestic factors and cross-country variation in climate ambitions
Pages 273-292 | Received 29 Feb 2024, Accepted 03 Oct 2024, Published online: 28 Oct 2024
ABSTRACT
This article examines how domestic factors explain variations in the ambitions of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Although Africa contributes only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is highly vulnerable to climate change. All 54 African countries have ratified the Paris Agreement, and by May 2022, 44 had submitted updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs), showing strong commitment to mitigating global temperature rise. Although SSA countries’ NDCs are more robust than the global average, significant cross-country variations exist. This article builds on the limited research on these variations to explore whether democracy, GDP, oil consumption, and historical emissions influence NDC ambition across 44 SSA countries. The analysis finds a statistically significant negative relationship between GDP and NDC ambition, while other variables show no significance. This study is crucial for understanding how domestic factors shape climate commitments in SSA.
Read more: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10220461.2024.2413686
The odd part of this article is, having discovered a statistically significant inverse correlation between climate ambition and national wealth, the author’s recommendation is to promote green energy and try to raise climate ambition in wealthy nations? Does she want to keep Africa poor?
Surely a more reasonable conclusion is there may be something about “climate ambition” which damages national economies?
Africa is not alone in showing such a correlation. High climate ambition Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have suffered years of energy poverty and economic difficulties. Yet despite the Biden Presidency, the USA, with consistently lower climate ambition, has a much healthier economy.
China is the odd man out when it comes to climate ambition vs economic progress, though some of the damage can be attributed to “climate ambition”. Despite their recent climate efforts, China is a coal powered economy which appears to be on the brink of a deep recession. But there are other factors affecting the Chinese economy, such as China’s gross mishandling of the Covid pandemic, Xi Jinping’s incompetent management of Chinese energy needs, China’s belligerent and disruptive posturing on the world stage, China’s brutal Maoist crackdown on business leaders, extreme local and regional government debt, and the ongoing banking crisis caused by their government’s long term failure to contain their property asset bubble, which I believe can more than account for China’s current economic woes.
The litany of problems being experienced by China makes me wonder if climate ambition is a proxy for more serious problems with governance. Perhaps governments which place climate ambition ahead of economic development are dysfunctional in other ways, which might make climate ambition a good litmus test for overall government incompetence, but not necessarily the complete explanation for why economies run by the climate ambitious perform so poorly.
I hope after Oluwafikayo Akeredolu wins her PhD she has an opportunity to reconsider her list of recommendations. Because the obvious conclusion from her research is if Africa wants to be rich, they need to ditch climate ambition, and fix whatever other problems led to the prioritising of climate ambition.
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Possibly countries with a functioning economy see other paths than relying on foreign aid?
It makes sense (to me) that any country without an existing power distribution network develop localised wind/solar hubs that can be interconnected at a later date.
This would avoid the effective duplication of a perfectly functional traditional hub-spoke power distribution networks with the distributed styles needed for wind/solar.
Wind or solar to run a TV or a few lights make sense, but you can’t build a modern industrial economy around wind and solar. The African nations which are doing well are using fossil fuels.
The African nations which are doing well are using fossil fuels.
True, but fossil fuel power generation is only a transition phase up to nuclear in a century or two. They just need to avoid the senseless duplication by not mixing a horse (hub/wheel) with a donkey (distributed) and end up with a mule of a power distribution system as we in Australia are heading for.
Ultimately coal and gas will run out, but no need to jump the gun by going straight to nuclear. Power plants only last a few decades, they should build what they can afford today, and create an economy capable of affording whatever comes next.
but no need to jump the gun
Agree again.
The reality is that CO2 levels are not going to drop for centuries. Put aside whether it is the cause and/or contibuted to the current warming, it is the metric used for human influence on pre-industrial weather. Everyone has to get used to this and adapt.
The other reality is that ultimately, nuclear is the sane alternative for power generation. Fossil fuels are too valuable to be wasted on combustion alone. It will be a centuries-long transition.
By the time fossil fuel runs out we shall be energy rich enough to extract all the carbon we need for organic synthesis from limestone. And that resource will never run out.
A century or two??? That’s not transition, it’s stagnation. Countries need reliable energy, and they need it now. That means fuel and/or hydro.
A century or two???
The ultimate transition will be to nuclear – it may take that long to recover from current net-zero policies.
Everything you say is correct, except about CO2. It would be great if CO2 levels do keep increasing as you say – the planet would benefit a lot – but I fear that at some time they will start falling again at which point humanity will (or certainly should) work hard on keeping them up. Life on Earth will depend on it.
Baking limestone to release CO2 would help keep CO2 levels high. You would need vast amounts of cheap energy, but this should not be a challenge in a future age of abundant nuclear fusion and space industry.
Eric & Mike
Part of the reason for my extended transition timescale is the number of our current < 40yolds who appear to be functionally illiterate when it comes to basic science subjects such as physics and applied geology. It is not possible to explain certain concepts – they cannot understand. It will take some time to correct this sad tale. It’s especially worse for applied geology, where almost all graduate subjects are taught within Schools of Environmental Science with unfortunate biases.
Was talking to a friend who lives over in Nelson Bay. (on the coast about 50km north of Newcastle)
He had been without power or communication for 3 days, and had lost his fridge contents. A real PITA !!!
This outage was from a severe storm taking out infrastructure, like transformers, power poles etc… so takes time to fix, especially as the bad weather continued.
Seems to have eased off now, and he just messaged to say he has power back on.
“Wind or solar to run a TV or a few lights make sense”
Not really… on a windless night, you have nothing… lights no work too good !!
unless you want to add a battery or two
The big need is to get 24/7 electricity to free-up human resources. Consider education, refrigeration and food prep, clean drinking water, and hygiene. All necessary for the people to have a decent life. I hope my freezer never needs to rely on a wind driven generator. There goes the ice cream.
When you have reliable electricity, you can start using appliances that require it (fridges, etc). You can also base industries on it. Those industries can produce things on which more industries can be based. The whole of the “third world” could be lifted out of poverty if their leaders could simply work for the people’s benefit starting with providing reliable power.
Yet in the western world people count jobs in the energy industry as if those are the jobs that the industry provides.
Interesting refrigeration is one need which could be solved without electrification, using currently available tools and technology. It is possible to power a simple, low cost closed cycle refrigerator / freezer powered directly by firewood or kerosene, for home or industrial use, no electricity or mechanical pumping required. All that is required is the knowledge to build the refrigerators, and already available tools and chemicals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
When I was a kid we used and icebox with daily ice delivery, but our neighbor had a frig that ran on natural gas. Later we got electricity and had a small electric frig.
Reconsidering her recommendation would dramatically reduce her prospect of being awarded a PhD. I have not looked at who funded this but it is likely an investment firm or bank that wants to get their climate scam embedded in Africa.
My concern also, hence my suggestion she reconsider after getting her PhD. Having said that, maybe there is never a good time, given the kind of jobs on offer.
Countries can afford all sorts of social posturing indulgences when their economies are healthy, growing and competitive.
But prematurely ejaculating over indulgences such as “saving the planet” inevitably lead to uncertainty, chaos and impoverishment for their citizens.
Germany, UK, Canada and Australia are graphic examples of “planet saving” pud-pullers.
Have you seen the latest on the UK economy? Even London is being impacted by poverty. The only thing keeping regions afloat is government expenditure, and the British Government is fast running out of people stupid enough to lend them money.
I suspect most of Europe is just as bad.
My point is they won’t have any spare cash for luxury thinking, possibly in as little as the next decade.
Typical of most Western Countries with leftist governments they will have killed the economy and be really shocked when the population comes after them.
The point is those poorer countries are looking to get the payments from the productive countries without the work to improve their economies or citizen’s life. I mean, when you can use the green grift to get money without working on improving your country, that is the answer to her thesis.
I hope after Oluwafikayo Akeredolu wins her PhD she has an opportunity to reconsider her list of recommendations.
Why not contact her and tell her so. She seems to have an X account and/or go through the department at Oxford.
It is your duty.
No need, I’m sure someone in her faculty will tell her about this article.
African nations are increasingly discovering that the west is the source of their problems, not their solutions.
You don’t say Sherlock…..
Perhaps it is more that poor African nations play the “climate ambition” game because they are likely recipients of cash from the bozos in the guilt-stricken formerly wealthy Western nations who think throwing cash at things makes them go away.
This post is enlightening but not for the reason some might think. My struggle is with really smart people. I am envious of people who can learn easily. I went to school with a gal whose family immigrated from India. God she was smart all she had to do was hear something and she had it. On the other hand I have to hear stuff several times, read and reread stuff, ask questions over and over and when I’m done with all of that I think it all over for a while. It is an effort. But sometimes I wonder if people like Helen (the Indian) ever stop to think about the stuff they have just learned. I don’t think Oluwafikayo has stopped to think about the things she is being taught. No matter who is teaching you or what they are teaching always stop and think about it.
Critical thinking doesn’t seem to be prized anymore.