2. Energy Use, Economy, and Carbon Emissions

3. Energy Statistics

4. Oil and Gas

5. Electricity

6. Trade and Cooperation

7. Environment and Renewable Energy in Africa

Appendix

7. Environment and Renewable

Major African Environmental Challenge:  Use of Biomass Energy
Climate Change in Africa
Non-Biomass Renewable Energy
Fossil Fuels in Africa
Trade and the Environment

Major African Environmental Challenge: Use of Biomass Energy

• Africa is the world’s largest consumer of biomass energy (firewood, agricultural residues, animal wastes, and charcoal), calculated as a percentage of overall energy consumption.

• Biomass accounts for as much as two-thirds of total African final energy consumption.  In comparison, biomass accounts for about 3% of final energy consumption in OECD countries.

• Africa consumed an estimated 205 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) of biomass and 136 Mtoe of conventional energy in 1995, according to the International Energy Agency.

• Most of Africa’s biomass energy use is in sub-Saharan Africa.  Biomass accounts for 5% of North African, 15% of South African, and 86% of sub-Saharan (minus South Africa) consumption.

• Wood, including charcoal, is the most common and the most environmentally detrimental biomass energy source.  Firewood accounts for about 65% of biomass use, and charcoal accounts for about 3%.

• Deforestation is now one of the most pressing environmental problems faced by most African nations, and one of the primary causes of deforestation is wood utilization for fuel.

• Deforestation has negative implications for the local environment (increased erosion) and the global environment (acceleration of climate change, threatened biodiversity).

• Many African nations have had over three quarters of their forest cover depleted.

• Of the 159 signatories to the Convention to Combat Desertification, 52 are African.  Of those 52, nearly all have ratified the Convention, which entered into force in 1997.

• Women and children suffer disproportionately from negative health effect due to the smoke generated in the use of fuelwood for cooking (smoke is a carcinogen and causes respiratory problems).  About 75% of wood harvested in sub-Saharan Africa is used for household cooking.

• Production of traditional fuels is often insufficient to satisfy rising demand.  Fuel available to the poorest communities is expected to decline, which will intensify environmental degradation in those communities.

• End-use efficiency for most traditional fuels is low.  A high concentration of fuels is needed to produce a low level of energy, and a significant share is wasted.

• South Africa is unique in sub-Saharan Africa; biomass accounts for only 15% of energy consumption.  There is a range of energy options available in South Africa: biomass, kerosene, coal, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity, and solar power.  This range of choices reflects the country’s high level of economic development, relative to other African countries.

Climate Change in Africa

Five African countries have signed, but not ratified, the Kyoto Protocol:  Egypt, Mali, Niger, Seychelles, and Zambia.  Africa contributes only about 3.7% of total world energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.  Addressing global climate change has not been a top priority.  However, there are compelling reasons for global climate change to be taken seriously in the context of Africa.

• Sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world’s second largest rain forest, in West Africa.  It is one of the world’s most important carbon sinks.  (Carbon sinks capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.)  Thus, there is world-wide incentive to be interested in Africa in the context of climate change.

• Gas “flaring” is still practiced in Africa.  In the process of oil production, natural gas is released.  Because the gas infrastructure in Africa is extremely limited, the gas is often burned off rather than captured for use.  Not only does this waste a potentially valuable energy source (the World Bank estimates that every day Africa flares gas equivalent to twelve times the energy that the continent uses), but it releases the carbon dioxide directly into the atmosphere.  This practice is being stopped, especially in Nigeria, through dramatically increased fines for flaring.

• Climate “variability” associated with climate change could have seriously negative implications for the local African environment and African welfare.  Climate variability could worsen rainfall and water problems, already prevalent in Africa.

• Desertification and environmental security are important issues in Africa, and climate change would have negative implications for both.  Resource conflict is a major risk, both between local communities and across borders.

• Global warming could expand the home range of mosquitos in Africa, and in turn make mosquito-borne malaria an even greater problem than it is today.

• One of the world’s major coral reefs, located in Seychelles, is already suffering from a slight increase in water temperatures.  Climate change could have devastating effect on the reef, and others in the region.

Selected Climate Change Projects in Africa:

• The World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) operate a $2.5-million climate change project in Mali.  The goal is to reduce demand for fuelwood through increased end-use efficiency (new stoves) and use of alternative fuels (kerosene, bottled gas).

• The World Bank and GEF operate a $4.7-million climate change project in Senegal.  The goal is to create participatory sustainable forest management, which will create a carbon sink, stimulate the local economy, and boost biodiversity.  Simultaneously, it will promote a shift from charcoal fuel to kerosene and liquid petroleum gas, and supply more efficient charcoal stoves for improved end-use efficiency.

• The World Bank and GEF recently completed a $3.3-million climate change project in Mauritius.  The project developed a long-term program to generate power from sugar cane waste.

• The World Bank and GEF operate a $4-million climate change project in Tunisia.  The project promotes solar water heating technology as a long-term, low-cost alternative to fossil fuel-based heat.

• The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE), a five-year, $14-million project to reduce the rate of deforestation in the Congo River Basin (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon).

• South Africa built the Africa Games Village in preparation for the All Africa Games, which it hosted in September 1999.  The Village is intended to serve as a model of energy and water efficiency for low cost housing projects, which typically have been poorly designed in terms of efficiency.

Non-Biomass Renewable Energy

Renewable energy demand is expected to grow in the coming decades as renewable energy technology becomes available for more Africans, especially in rural Africa.

Photovoltaic/Solar Power

• African nations have made considerable advances in the use of photovoltaic (PV) power.
  

• In Kenya, a series of rural electrification and other programs has resulted in the installation of more than 20,000 small-scale PV systems since 1986. These PV systems now play a prominent role in decentralized, sustainable electrification.

Other projects in Africa include:

• South Africa’s National Electrification Programme has increased electrification from 36% in 1994 to 63% today.  Solar power has played an important role in rural electrification, a trend which is expected to continue.

• A program to supply PV systems to 100 rural homes began in Namibia in April 1996.

• The Independent Development Trust, a rural electrification project in South Africa, has installed PV systems for clinics in remote areas.

• In 1998, Shell International Renewables Ltd. and South Africa’s state utility, Eskom, initiated plans to provide stand-alone solar power units to 50,000 homes currently without electricity.

• In 1998, Sweden and Zambia agreed to a PV rural electrification project.

• The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) started a pilot solar program in Zimbabwe in 1993 that was extended beyond its 1998 termination date due to popular demand.

Hydropower

• In Africa, hydroelectric power is the only significant grid-connected renewable energy source.

• In many African countries, hydroelectricity’s share of total installed electric capacity is quite high. In Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zambia, the vast majority of on-grid electricity generation comes from hydropower.

• Africa has considerable unexploited hydropower potential. Many new projects are planned or are under construction. The main hydro areas are the Congo River, the Nile River, and the Zambezi River.

• Environmental concerns associated with hydropower have been a factor in stalling progress in certain projects.  Large dams can have negative implications for biodiversity and can permanently alter river ecosystems.

Fossil Fuels in Africa

Africa is a major producer and exporter of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel production and transport have extensive environmental ramifications in Africa.

• Oil spills have had devastating effects on local environments, in part because African nations are not as equipped to deal with such accidents as more industrialized nations.  Many are just now signing international treaties related to oil pollution, such as the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage (1969) and the Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response Convention (1990).

• World Bank loans could help fund a 650-mile crude oil pipeline from Chad to Cameroon’s port of Kribi, with operations expected to begin in 2004.  Environmentalists are opposed to the project, because the pipeline will cross a tropical rainforest and major rivers in Cameroon.

• Fossil fuels, mainly in the form of automobile exhaust, are associated with air pollution in many African urban areas. One of the largest-ever USAID projects seeks to alleviate air pollution in Cairo, Egypt.

• Increased reliance on coal is considered a viable option for decreasing reliance on traditional fuels in many nations. Because Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions are low, carbon emissions from coal have not been a major concern.  (South Africa, which is ahead of most African nations in addressing climate change, is an exception.)

Trade and the Environment

• The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Trade Protocol has been signed by 11 members of the SADC (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) and could enter into force in early 2000.  The protocol calls for the reduction and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to intra-SADC trade.  It is unknown what environmental components the free trade agreement might include.

• Forty-one African nations are party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), signed in 1973.  In 1994, the Parties to the Convention established a Timber Working Group to explore in more detail the question of CITES and timber species.

• Nine African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, and Togo) are members of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), created by treaty in 1983 to provide a framework for consultation among producer and consumer member countries on all aspects of the world timber economy. ITTO’s “Year 2000 Objective” states that by the year 2000 all tropical timber products traded internationally by Member States will originate in sustainably managed forests.

• Thirteen African countries (Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, and Tanzania) are members of the African Timber Organisation (ATO), formed in 1976 for its members to cooperate in forest trade. The ATO seeks to coordinate optimum use and conservation of forest resources.