Of Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?
A friend of mine after interacting with Back to the Future pointed out the irony of government and how they tend to speak from both sides of their mouth. A rather curious observation I thought. This drew me to ponder on how African governments are handling the Just Energy Transition — an ambitious shift in the energy sector away from fossil fuels towards clean and renewable energy.
Centrality of Energy
Energy is crucial. The collapse of the Texas Power grid in February 2021 underscores this. Moreover, this has been echoed by Vera Songwe (the UNECA Executive Secretary) during her MIT Energy Initiative Podcast. She points out Africa’s unique position as the last energy frontier. Acknowledging that the energy investments in Africa are in line with the UN Decade of Action, she points out Africa still falls behind in its energy needs.
Considering the digital age we live in and its increased energy uptake, there's a need to increase our production. Think about it, car manufacturers are moving into electric vehicles. Battery manufacturers are looking to make more efficient batteries — this industry has morphed from Lead-acid batteries to the Lithium-Ion and now the development of the saltwater battery as an alternative to the Lithium-Ion. The financial sector has started embracing cryptocurrency and Non Fungible Tokens (NFT). These currencies are traded digitally and 70% of the mining is done in China. The Economist points out at its current unregulated state and the current trend, the energy required for the trade of cryptocurrency will be equal to the power consumed in Italy by 2024, and this is only from crypto-miners in China. This means that if unregulated crypto-miners in China will be adding 130 million tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere, Ceteris paribus. While this sector is still in infancy and the trade is highly domiciled in China, its growth points to the inevitability of increasing our power production to deal with future demands by different sectors.
Where are we?
A few African countries have gone on to increase their power production, and they are choosing renewable sources. Currently, Kenya has a 310-megawatt facility that is Africa’s largest wind farm; Morocco’s plan to ensure that 52% of its energy production by 2030 is from renewable sources is taking shape with the Noor Midelt 1 solar plant that will produce 800 megawatts of energy. This is in addition to the Noor Ouarzazate Solar plant that will be the second-largest solar plant globally once completed. Similarly, South Africa has the Jasper photovoltaic facility and Onshore Wind power projects. I cannot fail to mention the GERD hydroelectric dam being set up in the Blue Nile (Ethiopia and Sudan), the GIBE dams on the River Omo (Ethiopia), and the INGA 3 dam on the Congo River (DR Congo)… emphasizing that not only are governments looking to expand their power generating capacity but crucially that the power will be generated from renewable sources. As the Green Futures Index suggests the top 7 ranked countries paving the way in energy transition are all African countries, out of the 76 countries it ranks.
The Just Transition?
However, the vociferation for energy production has come at a cost?
In our endeavors towards energy transition, the language has been littered with words, like a Just Transition, Decarbonizing the economy, clean energy these words are used to propel a narrative of environmentalism, however, they have also desensitized us from the atrocities that are committed by these investments. These atrocities are manufactured by having the market influencing government policy and not the opposite.
Land Acquisition and Land Use
Take for example the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project. Touted to be the largest wind farm in Africa has been riddled with issues, majorly; 1)The fact that they displaced the people of Sarima and put them in an enclosure, robbing them of a livelihood; 2) Compensating the communities in the area the equivalent of $2 per hectare annually for a 150000ha piece of land where the project is located. The process of land acquisition leading to this amount payable for compensation is being contested in court. This is similar to the Olkaria Geothermal project that has displaced the Maa community in Ol Karia. This is a similar narrative with the construction of the GIBE dams in Ethiopia — and this had the added complication of separating Lake Turkana into two lakes with the dams added use for irrigation.
Labour Relations
In DR Congo, the mining of rare earth minerals like the 3T (Tin, Tantalum, and Tungsten) are still being mined as conflict minerals and in some cases by child laborers. While a decade has passed since US Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act as a way to regulated conflict minerals from Eastern Congo, the jury is still out on the success of this act.
Macbeth-esque
When it comes to energy production and moving towards industrialization Kenya and by extension African governments adopt a “by all means necessary” approach in the matter. This essentially means that energy production is lead by market forces more than public policy. Consequently, even in addressing climate change in electricity production, governments are quick to point out decarbonizing by reducing emissions and not addressing the structural inequalities that are exasperated by climate change the Lake Turkana Wind Power project is a good example of this. The government of Kenya keeps on doing this: they want to reduce emissions yet it is at the expense of people’s livelihoods and ironically were planning to set up a coal plant for power production. This conflict makes you think about the futile and monotonous crawl towards the inescapable end that nothing will ever change. As the soliloquy goes;
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
While it may seem doom and gloom, I remain an optimist simply because we are now dealing with the structures that put us here and breaking them one at a time ensuring a Just transition is actually Just.
Till next time…
Stay vigil
