The Clean Energy Hub of the Future | Rebekah Shirley | TED Talks

The Clean Energy Hub of the Future | Rebekah Shirley | TED - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9VFlXF47f0

Transcript:

(00:08) Africa is perhaps the continent that needs least convincing about the clean energy opportunity for health, livelihoods and economy. As the fastest-growing, yet least-electrified continent on the globe most in need of power systems that can help fortify against the onslaught of climate shocks and with both abundant fossil and renewable energy resources to build them, Africa's energy transitions and how to dissuade the use of fossil fuels have become an intense international debate.

(00:41) But what the debates often miss is that Africa is not a single story. As an energy systems modeler, I can tell you that though the baseline is low, where they do have power, many Sub-Saharan African countries already rely on low-carbon resources. Kenya, where I live, generates 90 percent of its power from renewables like geothermal and hydropower.

(01:03) Even in West Africa, where renewable shares tend to be lower, countries like Ghana generate over a third of their power from renewable energy resources. And countries like Namibia are at the forefront of innovation on clean fuels like green hydrogen. Couple all of that with housing one of the world's largest carbon sinks, the Congo Basin, and Sub-Saharan Africa is consistently recognized as pulling more than its fair share of the global decarbonization effort.

(01:32) So unlike the deep emissions reductions, and urgent pivot away from fossil fuels we need to see from heavy emitters, Sub-Saharan Africa and energy transitions are more a question of how to quickly ramp up generation and distribution capacities in ways that are affordable, accessible, resilient, while staying the course of climate compatibility.

(01:54) So if the need is urgent and if the resources are bountiful, then why are we still so far away from this clean energy future for Africa? I've led the design and deployment of energy projects here myself. And I found and what I've learned is that though the world loves to remind Africa about its vast clean energy potential, the financial flows to deliver that potential remain troublingly scarce.

(02:21) Projects and businesses incur a number of hidden compounding costs and premiums. Like the risk perception premium. Or the “paying back your US dollar loan in a constantly depreciating local currency” premium. Or the “expected to deliver conventionally high rates of return while raising your revenues from customers that earn less than a dollar a day” premium.

(02:47) So international finance markets are not appetized and financial flows here remain a trickle despite a pipeline of ready projects. Effectively, this prioritizes risk to capital over risk to human life. In fact, though, 17 percent of the global population and almost 90 percent of those still without access to basic energy, today, Africa accounts for a mere two percent of global clean energy finance.

(03:17) These realities of local enterprise rarely make it into the models or the debates, leaving us with a skewed perception of what transition really takes or why progress might seem so slow. From this perspective, we can see a key missing ingredient: International cooperation to deliver the finance flows that Africa sorely needs because there’s so much potential waiting right at the cusp.

(03:43) If local enterprise had access to long-term, low-cost financing, like their counterparts in other regions of the world can simply take for granted, then Africa's clean energy future would build itself. We know this because African communities, by their actions, show us the kinds of futures that they want.

(04:04) As our cushioned conferences wax on year after year, my friend Jeffrey runs a solar company that targets commercial and industrial customers, helping to kick-start what has become the fastest growing wave of solar across the continent. And also demonstrating that African businesses see value in being powered by renewables.

(04:28) My neighborhood buddy, Samir, runs a solar irrigation company. It's estimated that about 95 percent of farmers in Africa still rely entirely on increasingly erratic rains. So this is a game changer for food security. My former student, Phoebe, she now designs fuel-efficient cook stoves that reach into thousands of homes from Zambia to Mozambique, providing sustainable alternatives to what is actually the largest energy use on the continent, household cooking.

(05:00) And at the World Resources Institute, we support dozens of young Rwandan, Ugandan and Kenyan electric mobility start-ups that are revolutionizing the face of transit in East Africa. These are real people, real stories, real families representing a real wave of local enterprise, successfully serving communities across an entire spectrum of energy needs.

(05:25) These are real salaries, real rents, real mortgages, real savings being put on the line every day. Is that not the utmost confidence in Africa's clean energy business potential? Imagine how fast we could go and how far we could move if they had a level playing field instead of yet more obstacles to climb.

(05:47) And if they can be invested, then what excuse remains for those with the means and the responsibility? Africa is speaking. But it's not one story. It's not even 54 stories. It's the stories of thousands of communities mobilizing the features they want and inviting the world's partnership in it.

(06:09) Partnership. Not charity, not a victim song, but fairness and cooperation. Ambitious, time-bound commitments to deliver long-term, low cost financing at scale from countries, banks and development finance institutions. Two, increased concessional financing, not reclassified financing, that doesn’t just target the easily profitable projects, but that is leveraged to drive global capital to least-electrified communities.

(06:45) And three. Programs that expand the access to that finance and initiatives that bolster local supply chains, generating value, revenues, employment and skills at home. These are the solutions that the international community must make an urgent priority, even as African countries do their own homework to improve the local business environment.

(07:08) And this, delivering accessible, clean energy financing at scale will be a far more productive show of partnership and trust than debating what countries should do with their available resources. Climate justice is heavy emitters cooperating to realize clean energy futures for those countries that have been denied, locked out of their fair share of a global carbon budget.

(07:33) So today, let's cut past the talk and focus on unleashing the avalanche of a clean-energy future that Africa is ready to deliver. Thank you. (Cheers and applause)