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How to Respond to Energy Transitions in Africa: Introducing the Energy Progression Dialogue

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Abstract

The world is transitioning to a low-carbon economy. How are African countries responding to this transition? The book, ‘Energy Transitions and the future of the African Energy Sector: Law, Policy and Governance’, aims at addressing the key concerns for African countries with respect to energy transitions. There have been initiatives on the African continent to embrace this transition as evidenced in not only these countries’ commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, but also various efforts in deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    SDGs UN. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 2015.

  2. 2.

    Nalule, V.R., 2018. Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Regionalism. Springer.

  3. 3.

    United Nations Development Programme: SDG 7 on Clean Energy. Can be accessed at, https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-7-affordable-and-clean-energy.html.

  4. 4.

    IEA. 2019. Africa Energy Outlook 2019, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2019.

  5. 5.

    Ibid.

  6. 6.

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2018. Global Warming of 1.5 °C—A Special Report. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/.

  7. 7.

    Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low-Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

  8. 8.

    Olawuyi, D. 2020. ‘Energy Poverty in the Middle East and North African (MENA) Region: Divergent Tales and Future Prospects’, in Inigo Del Guayo, Lee Godden, Donald N. United Nations, Transforming.

  9. 9.

    Forbes: Norway Wealth Fund to Dumb Fossil Fuels Stock. 12 June 2020. Can be accessed at, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/06/12/norway-wealth-fund-to-dump-fossil-fuel-stocks-worth-billions-in-environmental-move/#4dbb5c9748a3.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    BBC News: European Investment Bank Drops Fossil Fuel Funding. 14 November 2019. Can be accessed at, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50427873.

  12. 12.

    BBC News: Kenya halts Lamu Coal Power Project. 26 June 2019. Can be accessed at, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48771519.

  13. 13.

    BBC News: Climate Protesters Storm Garzweiler Coalmine in Germany. 23 June 2019. Can be accessed at, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48734321.

  14. 14.

    IRENA: Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019. Can be accessed at, https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2020/Jun/IRENA_Power_Generation_Costs_2019.pdf.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    Financial Times: China Expands Coal Plant Capacity to Boost the Post-Virus Economy. 24 June 2020. Can be accessed at, https://www.ft.com/content/cdcd8a02-81b5-48f1-a4a5-60a93a6ffa1e.

  17. 17.

    Olawuyi, D.S., 2020. Can MENA Extractive Industries Support the Global Energy Transition? Current Opportunities and Future Directions. The Extractive Industries and Society.

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    United States Agency for International Development. Southern Africa Drought, Fact Sheet. USAID January 2017. https://scms.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/southern_africa_dr_fs04_01-30-2017.pdf.

  20. 20.

    Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources: Kenya’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) 23 July 2015.

  21. 21.

    Egan, M., Oil Prices Turned Negative. Hundreds of US Oil Companies Could Go Bankrupt. CNN Business. 21 April 2020. Can be accessed at, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/20/business/oil-price-crashbankruptcy/index.html. Last accessed on 22 April 2020.

  22. 22.

    International Energy Agency (IEA), Key Electricity Trends. 14 April 2020. Can be accessed at, https://www.iea.org/articles/key-electricity-trends-2019. Last accessed on 20 April 2020.

  23. 23.

    Coal, for instance, the technology aimed at reducing emissions include high efficiency, low emissions (HELE) and carbon capture storage (CCS) emissions.

  24. 24.

    We note that other parts of the globe are also endowed with massive coal resources. For instance, as of 2018, Europe accounted for 12.8% of the global coal reserves while the Asia Pacific and North America accounted for 42.2 and 24.5%, respectively. See, BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 68th edition, 2019. Can be accessed at, https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2019-coal.pdf.

  25. 25.

    UNCTAD, 1995. Environmental Preferable Products (EPPs) as a Trade Opportunity for Developing Countries, Report by UNCTAD Secretariat, UNCTAD/COM/70, Geneva.

  26. 26.

    Moati, W.H., 2018. The Contribution of Natural Gas to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Arab Countries Case. In 9th International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development, https://www.unece.org/energywelcome/areas-of-work/forum/ annual-fora/2018/sessions-of-the-9th-ifesd/14-nov/the-role-of-natural-gas-in achieving-sdgs.html.

  27. 27.

    Africa’s proven oil and gas reserves account for 7.5 and 7.1% of global reserves, respectively.

  28. 28.

    Deloitte: Africa Oil & Gas state of Play, November 2018. Can be accessed at, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/xe/Documents/energy-resources/africa_oil_gas_state_of_play_Nov2018.pdf.

  29. 29.

    Willsher, K. 2018. Gilets Jaunes Protests in France to Continue Despite Fuel Tax U-Turn. The Guardian Newspaper, 4 Tuesday. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/04/french-government-to-suspend-fuel-tax-increasesay-reports.

  30. 30.

    Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

  31. 31.

    UNEP, Air Pollution: Africa’s Invisible, Silent Killer. 20 October 2016. Can be accessed at, https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/air-pollution-africas-invisible-silent-killer-1.

  32. 32.

    United Nations: Ending Poverty. Can be accessed at, https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/poverty/.

  33. 33.

    BP. 2018. BP Energy Outlook: 2018 Edition. https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/energy-outlook/bpenergy-outlook-2018.pdf.

  34. 34.

    Oxford Dictionary. 2019. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/transition.

  35. 35.

    Cambridge English Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/transition. Last accessed on 12 April 2020

  36. 36.

    International Renewable Energy Agency. 2018. Energy Transition. https://www.irena.org/energytransition.

  37. 37.

    Bridge, G., Bouzarovski, S., Bradshaw, M. and Eyre, N., 2013. Geographies of Energy Transition: Space, Place and the Low-Carbon Economy. Energy Policy 53: 331–340.

  38. 38.

    Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R. 2016. Energy Justice: A Conceptual Review. Energy Research & Social Science 11: 174–182; Sovacool, B.K. and Dworkin, M.H., 2015. Energy Justice: Conceptual Insights and Practical Applications. Applied Energy 142: 435–444.

  39. 39.

    Heffron, R.J. and McCauley, D., 2018. What Is ‘Just Transition’? Geoforum 88: 74–77.

  40. 40.

    Oxford Dictionary. 2019. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/transition.

  41. 41.

    Cambridge English online Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

  44. 44.

    Bridge, G., Bouzarovski, S., Bradshaw, M. and Eyre, N., 2013. Geographies of Energy Transition: Space, Place and the Low-Carbon Economy. Energy Policy 53: 331–340.

  45. 45.

    Podobnik, B., 2006. Global Energy Shifts: Fostering Sustainability in a Turbulent Age. The Energy and Resources Institute, TERI Press.

  46. 46.

    Ibid.

  47. 47.

    Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

  48. 48.

    Avila, N., Carvallo, J.P., Shaw, B. and Kammen, D.M., 2017. The Energy Challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Guide for Advocates and Policy Makers. https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/oxfam-RAEL-energySSA-pt1.pdf.

  49. 49.

    Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  50. 50.

    The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 2014.

  51. 51.

    See, Article 7(1) (a), Act No. 6 of the 1991 Constitution, Sierra Leone.

  52. 52.

    IRENA, Egypt Renewable Energy Outlook, 2018. Can be accessed at, https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2018/Oct/IRENA_Outlook_Egypt_2018_En.pdf. Last accessed on 11 April 2020.

  53. 53.

    United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 2017. Examining Energy Efficiency Issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/newsletter/dec2014/smarter-power-in-africa.

  54. 54.

    Leal-Arcas, R., Filis, A. and Nalule, V., 2020. Energy Decentralisation and Decarbonisation. Natural Resources Journal 60(1): 117–166.

  55. 55.

    Jaguar. 2019. Jaguar Launches EV Charging and Powerway Network in South Africa. https://www.jaguar.co.za/electrification/jaguar-powerway.html; Nalule, V.R., 2020. Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy: Is Africa Ready to Bid Farewell to Fossil Fuels? In The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions (pp. 261–286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

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Nalule, V.R. (2021). How to Respond to Energy Transitions in Africa: Introducing the Energy Progression Dialogue. In: Nalule, V.R. (eds) Energy Transitions and the Future of the African Energy Sector. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56849-8_1

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