[ 2017-04-06 ]

Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan backs fossil fuels to light Africa
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has backed
African governments’ use of fossil fuels –
especially the continent’s large endowment of
coal – to bridge Africa’s huge energy gap.

In the face of opposition to the use of coal by
climate change activists, Mr Annan said: “We are
not saying countries should immediately stop using
fossil fuels and switch to renewable sources of
energy.”

His assertion was backed by a report by the Africa
Progress Panel (APP), Lights Power Action:
Electrifying Africa, launched in Abidjan recently,
which said Africa needed to move faster to solve
its energy crisis as quickly as possible.

This means adopting a significant increase in a
range of solutions on and off grid, the report
suggests.

Mr Annan, who chairs the APP, said during the
report’s launch at the headquarters of the
African Development Bank: “As our report clearly
states, the cost of transitioning to renewables
may be prohibitively high in the short term –
especially for countries that use their sizeable
endowments of coal and other fossil fuels to
generate energy.

“What we are advocating is that African
governments harness every available energy option,
in as cost-effective and technologically efficient
manner as possible, so that no one is left
behind.

“Each country needs to decide on the most
cost-effective, technologically efficient energy
mix that works best for its own needs.”

Lights Power Action underlines that the 620
million Africans without access to electricity
need a mix of off-grid and mini-grid solutions.

Mr. Annan went on: “Governments and their
partners need to seize the opportunity to
re-imagine their energy futures.

“Africa’s energy deficit continues to stifle
economic growth, job creation, agricultural
transformation, and improvements in health and
education.

“Meeting Sustainable Development Goal 7, the
energy goal, is a pre-condition for achieving many
of the other goals.”

Figures show that of the 315 million people who
will gain access to electricity in Africa’s
rural areas by 2040, it is estimated that only 30
per cent will be connected to national grids.

Most will be powered by off-grid household or
mini-grid systems.

It is in the light that there has been growing
support for African countries to use coal to bring
power quickly to a continent that has 35 billion
tons of recoverable coal reserves that would last
for 122 years at the current rate of consumption.

They argue that using coal to power Africa would
drive growth and create jobs.

Last year Nigerian Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun
told a joint meeting of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and World Bank: “We in Nigeria have
coal but we have a power problem, yet we’ve been
blocked because it is not green.

“There is some hypocrisy because we have the
entire Western industrialisation built on coal
energy.

“They are saying: ‘You have to use solar and
wind’, which are the most expensive,” she
added.

In July last, former Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo, a member of the APP, added his voice to
the debate: “We in Africa, we should use what we
have to generate power for our people.”

Lights Power Action is an in-depth follow up to
the influential 2015 Africa Progress Report, Power
People Planet: Seizing Africa’s Energy and
Climate Opportunities.

African governments have pointed out that the
original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) places development first when it states:
“Economic and social development and poverty
eradication are the first and overriding priority
of the developing country partner.”

For African governments, the use of coal is
clearly the way forward for achieving economic
development and industrialisation, rather than
depending on renewable energy projects that are
expensive and not delivering.

For example, a recent assessment of the Green
Africa Power (GAP): Renewable Energy for Africa
project launched by the UK’s Department for
International Development (DfID) in March 2011
showed that it did not deliver a single GW of
power.

The DfID had spent £9.4 million over five years
to provide 765 gigawatts hours (GWh) of
electricity to over nine million people in Africa
with the aim of raising investment from the
private sector for renewable energy across
sub-Saharan Africa.

The recent annual review of GAP revealed that
“no milestone target” had been set, and that
“no projects were expected to reach financial
close”.

The review is coming at a time when the UK’s
foreign aid is increasingly being criticised by
Conservative politicians who feel that British
taxpayers’ money is going on aid projects that
do not deliver for poor people.

The UK is one of only six developed countries that
have hit the UN foreign aid target of 0.7 per
cent.

A recent investigation by The Daily Telegraph
newspaper discovered that hundreds of millions of
British money spent on solar energy projects in
Ethiopia, Mali and Kenya had not had the desired
effect of improving access to electricity by
ordinary people in Africa.

Now Priti Patel, who was appointed Secretary of
State for International Development in July last
year, is taking a tough stand on how UK aid is
spent and wants the climate change projects
investigated.

In this light, the APP report describes the kinds
of policies and investments needed to support the
ambitious new public and private initiatives now
under way that aim to increase energy access
swiftly across Africa, especially the New Deal on
Energy for Africa, spearheaded by the African
Development Bank.

“As our new report shows, where there is good
leadership, there are excellent prospects for
energy transition,” Mr. Annan said.

“We know what is needed to reduce and ultimately
eliminate Africa’s energy deficit.

“Now we must focus on implementation.

“The time for excuses is over. “It’s time
for action”, he noted.

Source - GNA

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