Guest essay by Vijay Jayaraj
For decades growth strategies in poorer countries of the Global South – Asia, Africa and South America – leaned heavily on energy-intensive industries powered by fossil fuels and, in a handful of cases, by nuclear power. Cities grew, factories rose, exports surged, poverty declined.
This growth slowed under the weight of decarbonization dogma and financial restrictions. However, just as the region faces the choice of either asserting its energy sovereignty or resigning itself to stagnation, an unexpected force from the U.S. has risen to potentially beat back the climate cult.
In the early 2000s, nations like China and India doubled down on coal to industrialize, achieving annual growth of over 7%. Sub-Saharan Africa followed suit, with oil and gas exports funding infrastructure.
But decarbonization agendas, driven by wealthier nations through bodies like the United Nations, imposed restrictions on this model. International financial institutions and donor nations increasingly attached conditions on financing arrangements – among them bans or limits on fossil fuel development while expressing an aversion to nuclear power.
These measures sought to force a shift to intermittent wind and solar energy, which fail to provide the scale and reliability needed for round-the-clock factories. Result? Growth forecasts dipped, and the World Bank lowered growth projection to less than 4% for many African economies.
Africans currently dependent on subsistence agriculture and raw material exports need manufacturing to create wealth and raise living standards. Industrialization requires electricity measured in megawatts and gigawatts, not the trickle of electrons that solar panels and wind turbines provide.
They need energy prices low enough to compete with manufacturers in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, all of which prioritize energy affordability over “green” purity.
Natural resource-rich nations that should be climbing the value chain by developing processing and manufacturing facilities find themselves stuck as exporters of raw material. They ship iron ore to China where it is turned into steel and soybeans to Europe where they are transformed to processed foods. The value addition happens elsewhere because the energy infrastructure needed for manufacturing faces persistent opposition from climate activists and their allies in government.
Every dollar wasted by the developing world on impractical “green energy” projects is a dollar not spent on the natural gas pipelines, power plants and high-voltage transmission lines that would enable long-term economic progress.
The recent shift in U.S. energy policy offers a glimmer of hope. For the first time in years, a major Western power has acknowledged that imposing “green” energy preferences on developing nations is economic sabotage.
The Trump administration has signaled that it will no longer support bans on financing of fossil fuel projects. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been particularly forthright in stating that developing nations should have the freedom to use their own resources to power their growth.
Vijaya Ramachandran, a respected voice on the economics of African energy, captured the importance of this policy shift. She notes that the message from the current U.S. administration represents a fundamental break from previous approaches. Rather than dictating energy choices to sub-Saharan Africa, Washington now recognizes that African nations must exploit their hydrocarbon reserves to meet industrial needs.
The continent’s manufacturing sector cannot develop without reliable power for factories and private enterprises. Large-scale industrialization, which has yet to occur across much of Africa, requires exactly the kind of infrastructure that previous U.S. leadership discouraged.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, over 600 million people still lack access to reliable electricity. Every child who grows up without electricity, every worker denied a factory job, every family trapped in poverty because industrial development was blocked represents lost opportunity for better lives.
The Global South is not asking for a handout but for a level playing field. It is asking for the same opportunity that the West has had for centuries – the chance to use its own resources to build a bright future for its people.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
All it took was an influential country to say the NetZeros had no clothes on.
Right on! Another way to say it is “Trump Was Right About Everything”. Great Hat!
Very nice Vijay, excellent, excellent article.
The loonies almost took over the asylum. Almost.
They won’t stop trying, though.
The joys of eco-colonialism are measured in the deaths of millions of children and adults because of poverty and malnutrition. It has produced not one measurable good result for anyone upon whom it has been inflicted. It will increase disparity between North/South nations. It will increase food shortage and starvation. It will increase disease by increasing poverty.
It seems that the modern environmentalist-antidevelopment industry has at least as much to be held to account for as the slave trading industry wiped out in the 19th century. Indeed, green energy is provided a return to child labour in Africa, slave labour in the PRC.
And all of these atrocities have been perpetrated and encouraged by supposedly well-educated people.
yes x 42. Except their “education” has been brain washing with Marxist nonsense. The atrocities part is exactly right, though.
Agreed. I would only add that the Marxist brainwashing has been going on for decades. My experience with so-called “Political Science” was that it was nothing more than a hagiography of who did what in the Soviet Union. It was taken for granted that the USSR would outlast the United States and the rest of the western democracies. Political Science, Sociology and by extension the rest of the supposed social sciences were little more than Marxist indoctrination.
Enough with the “energy colonialism.”
STORY TIP
Ted Nordhouse writes a mea culpa in The Free Press.
He still gets a lot wrong about climate change but backing away from the alarmism… that’s a big step and a sign the tide is turning:
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-climate-change-would-end?utm_campaign=reaction
It is a big step, particularly when he headlines it with this: “My worldview was built on apocalyptic models sprung from faulty assumptions.”
This is a degree of honesty that the bulk of the Church of AGW has refused to face. Far too many of them are still, like Mikey Mann, trapped in denial. But Nordhaus and Schellenberger were always highly respected for their views, and this change by Nordhaus carries considerable weight.
Tried to read the link but seems to be limited to subscribers.
Another thoughtful article. Thanks Vijay.