Climate & Energy Transitions

BLUF: USG support for African power generation has slowed in recent years, roughly mirroring broader market trends. The number of gas or diesel projects beginning construction has remained relatively small but stable over the past decade – while renewable projects dramatically increased, before falling in the last few years.

Rose Mutiso joins the show to discuss the connection between access to affordable electricity and poverty and details a path forward for energy-poor countries in Africa.

How renewable energy can be a game-changer for Africa's desalination industry By 2050, it is expected that there will be at least 800 million Africans living in regions with acute water scarcity (where the renewable water resources capacity is less than 1000 m3/capita/year).1 A recent study on the potential growth of the desalination market in developing countries estimated the demand for desalination in Africa’s most water-scarce countries to reach 37 Mm3/day by 2050, satisfying total municipal water demand for urban populations; which is an increase of more than 1500% compared to the current installed capacity in these countries.1 FIGURE 1: Projected desalination capacity in sub-Saharan Africa’s most water-scarce countries by 2050 According to the FAO, the agricultural sector has the highest water demands in these regions, which makes desalination a key enabler for food security. African governments are already taking serious steps to develop more desalination plants.

Globally, nearly 2 billion people – about half of them in sub-Saharan Africa – lack access to safe drinking water.

Next week is make-or-break for the United States to show an actual alternative to Chinese-backed infrastructure. President Biden will host 49 African leaders December 13-15 in an orchestrated effort to show that the United States is no longer disengaged with the continent and to rebuild trust with a region where one in four people will live by mid-century.

The fight over when – or even whether – to use development finance for gas-fired power plants in poor countries has become overly contentious and counterproductive.

Nigeria wants to achieve a net-zero emissions energy system In November 2021, at the United Nations climate change conference (COP26) held in Glasgow, President Muhammadu Buhari announced Nigeria’s commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.

Published in Nature, November 2, 2022. Energy transition plans leave out African data, priorities and expertise, excluding one billion people on the continent. Imagine making a data-driven plan for the world, but leaving out more than one billion people in Africa.

Climate policy is complicated. The latest authoritative IPCC assessment is 3000+ pages long and much of it is impossible for non-experts to understand.

Achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions is essential for climate progress. But most global projections of how to get there actually leave over 1 billion people behind.