Last week, South Africa received a deal through a partnership with the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and France to move towards a just transition to renewable energy worth USD 8.5bn. The shift now is that China is no longer funding coal overseas, which means plants in Southern Africa - such as those in Botswana and Zimbabwe - will face challenges finding finance to continue coal projects.Ĥ0 per cent of new gas was discovered on the African continent.Ī recent OECD analysis shows developed countries won’t be able to meet the pledge of USD 100 billion in climate financing per year until 2023. For a long time, China has been funding clean energy and coal. In theory, the end of coal finance means there’s a huge amount of money that is available to be invested in renewables, particularly in grids that can handle the high penetration of renewables. This makes financing coal transitions even harder politically, although solar is now the cheapest electricity to date. Moving away from them will not be easy for the continent’s economy, as it depends on big investments in renewables. Africa’s near half of export value is made up of fossil fuels. The African continent’s energy mix is currently composed of coal and gas accounting for 14 per cent each, oil making up 22 per cent, and hydropower representing 1 per cent of the total primary energy supply on the continent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This means the continent would need a huge amount of financing to increase its current share of 2 per cent of the world’s renewables, according to data by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). New partners to finance the transitionĪs countries phase down from coal, public financing for this fossil fuel becomes limited, changing the narrative for the continent’s energy source, Roberts explained.
This highlights a more urgent need to shift away from coal towards renewables, instead of more gas projects. A Climate Action Tracker report published in early November showed that the planet was headed towards 2.4☌ of warming with current measures such as Nationally Determined Contributions in place. A lack of detail around the COP26 coal phase-down leaves questions about its impact on keeping 1.5☌ within reach, if countries rely on gas for energy. In general, 17 countries on the continent produce gas with seven acting as net exporters. The company Total, for example, has invested a major stake in some of these countries. This is especially the case when 40 per cent of new gas was discovered on the African continent, in countries such as Senegal, Mauritania, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Methane emissions from gas trap around 30 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 does. It's not just that it's a short term bad idea, it will mean higher energy bills for a lot of these countries which will be a competitive disadvantage’, he told Climate Tracker in an interview.
‘Pursuing gas as a transition fuel gets in the way of renewables which are cheaper. Leo Roberts, a research manager in the Fossil Fuel Transitions team at E3G, thinks that building fast infrastructure runs the risk of building stranded assets as seen with coal.
But it is still a fossil fuel and one of the main methane sources on the planet, given that leaks often go unnoticed. Gas contains half the amount of emissions of coal. This is one of the reasons COP26 President, Alok Sharma, said the aim was to move away from coal and not fossil fuel in general.
This shift has been evident, for example, in the UK, as the country heavily depends on gas for energy. The final agreement makes no further mention of how the phase-down should be carried out, giving countries leeway to convert to gas a fossil fuel touted as a ‘transitional fuel’ with still significant emissions. For the African continent, ditching coal won’t necessarily mean a move away from fossil fuels, if there is not enough funding for renewables. A last-minute softening of the COP26 final text - changing the wording from a coal ‘phase out’ to a ‘phase down’ - can be said to have provided some relief for the African continent, which is highly dependent on coal.Ī complete shift away from coal might not be so simple for African countries, which barely manage to meet energy demands.
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The end of coal might have had some African nations worried, thinking about how to even start retiring the dirty mineral.