The president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Samaila Zubairu has said that Africa’s climate challenges put the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) at risk by up to 35%.
Zubairu who made this known during a panel discussion at the October 3rd Reuters Impact climate conference in London said that the figure will keep growing as long as Africa lacks the infrastructure that is resilient to the impact of climate change.
According to Zubairu, the AFC believes that the challenges of the energy transition, energy crisis, and food crisis that Africa and the world face, create an opportunity for Africa to seize the moment and build ecosystems of adaptation.
He noted that Africa needs to build ecosystems that allow for reforestation, so, trees can absorb carbon, and access to cleaner cooking sources for women because firewood as a cooking source depletes the forests, which act as carbon sinks.
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“Africa has 60% of the best solar sources in the world, yet only 1% is utilized. Africa’s hydropower and natural gas are still largely underdeveloped – all of this can play a key role in the challenges facing the world today,” he says.
Zubairu told the Reuters Impact conference attendees that a just energy transition has to focus on reliable access that is affordable for a vast majority of people, adding that 80% of people with no access to electricity globally live in Africa, and amongst them, there are up to 900 million people who do not have access to clean cooking.
“Just transition for us is access to energy that is affordable, energy access that does not compromise economic development in Africa, and energy access that allows for the key challenges around financing, and adaptation to be resolved at the same time as economic development” he maintained.
Speaking further, he said, “When we look at projects and opportunities, we are trying to see how we can build an ecosystem along value chains that allow for carbon neutrality as we go along but the focus is on economic development,”.
He noted that several stakeholders have called to question the ideology behind the Global North telling Africa not to develop its natural gas resources and that people should not be asked not to use gas when the alternative is fuel oil imports or the use of coal. He says the AFC has built the first wind farm in Cape Verde which covers 20% of energy requirements on the Island.
He further explained that the corporation is also building the first independent power project (IPP) in Djibouti which will replace imported fuel from Ethiopia, a gas-fired plant in Ghana, which will replace imported diesel and fuel oil as well as a gas plant in Senegal which will utilize naturally sourced gas from Senegal.
“All these projects, according to him, reduce carbon emissions,” he said.
Story was adapted from Nairametrics.
