Mango trees, green energy and why East African planners must listen to the Pope

Pope Francis' Laudato Si encyclical’s scope is broad, perhaps the hardest hitting single climate document by a non-activist leader yet. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGAH |   NATION MEDIA GROUP

By Mark Hankins

In Summary

• When the pope, the world’s leading moral authority, issues an encyclical addressing the looming dangers of climate change and carbon emissions, it’s time for grown-ups in the room to take serious note.

When the pope, the world’s leading moral authority, issues an encyclical addressing the looming dangers of climate change and carbon emissions, it’s time for grown-ups in the room to take serious note.

The Laudato Si encyclical’s scope is broad, perhaps the hardest hitting single climate document by a non-activist leader yet. It addresses an array of climate issues in a moral light: Development aid and energy access, carbon trading, historical responsibility, the slow pace of political action and the contribution of rampant consumerism to environmental degradation. It does not mince words about fossil fuels:

“We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels — especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas — needs to be progressively replaced without delay.”

How ironic that, as the Holy See rings in the end of the fossil fuel era, East African countries are poised to begin it. It is, of course, about economic growth and money.

So, though the regions’ leaders are used to such harassment from environmentalists, it is another thing altogether to hear sermons from the pulpit about putting the brakes on fossil fuel development. Especially when church leaders speak of the “moral duty” to change environmentally incorrect behaviour.

Until recently sub-Sahara Africa has been given a “pass” when it comes to carbon emissions. In international dialogues, the “politically correct” position has been that, first, developing countries did not cause this mess; second, they need to focus on building out energy access to their populations; and third, their poor are most at risk from the ravages of climate change. So, as the “victim,” Africa was given free rein to grow carbon use.

Today, as global CO2 concentrations spiral rapidly towards levels beyond internationally agreed budgets, the thinking is changing. Decreasing costs of renewable energy are changing rhetoric: The new talk is about leapfrogging carbon-intensive infrastructure and moving directly to green economies.

On the ground, though, energy — like roads — has much to do with economic development and security. Being “green” is only one of the calculations factored in by planners.

East Africa’s growing economies need low-cost electricity to move forward. Economic planners want to add perhaps 30,000MW of power to the regions’ grids in the next 20 years to fuel growth. And, although there is a lot of green energy in the ambitious expansion plans, there are also a lot of coal, oil-fired power and natural gas.

Today, as South Africa runs on it and Mozambique exploits massive fields, East Africa is investing in coal-fired power plants for large portions of its electricity budget.

Kenya and Uganda are looking to build refineries and pipe petroleum from underground reserves to the industrial developments at the Coast. Indian Ocean gas wells are being drilled from Beira to Lamu.

This appetite to extract carbon is driven by entrenched local and international business entities with little regard for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), global carbon budgets and papal decrees. One wonders if there is a danger of the region going down the wrong energy path.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the leader of a local NGO scrutinising Uganda’s petroleum sector was recently called in by national security. His group was getting some bureaucratic backs up.

In government eyes, energy is a security concern and no NGO has the right to get in the way.  “Who is funding you?” they wanted to know. Given the way environmentalists slowed down the Bujagali dam, the last thing Uganda wants is international interference with its petroleum industry. Kenya and Tanzania have similar sovereign sentiments.

Regional governments are right be worried. First, because there is a growing international consensus about the need for real action to reduce global emissions.