The year 2015 is when climate change, energy needs and financing for
development get the global attention they deserve. Over the course of the year,
world leaders will settle on a new set of global development goals, hold a
summit on financing for those goals and frame an agreement on climate
change.
The challenges are immense. Creating jobs, sustaining growth and eradicating
poverty in a carbon-constrained world demands a restructuring of energy systems
and a deeper appreciation of the boundaries of our ecological systems. Our panel
members are at the forefront of these debates.
On 5 June, at the World
Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by
Kofi Annan, will launch the 2015
report on climate and energy. The report will make the case that Africa’s
engagement in climate change is inextricably linked to its pressing energy
needs.
In Africa, unequal access to energy has reinforced the wider inequalities
linked to poverty, gender and the rural-urban divide that have accompanied the
economic growth of the past 15 years. Africa is already experiencing severe and
damaging impacts from climate change. Yet no region has done less to contribute
to global warming than Africa.
So great are the energy challenges and so severe the climate risks that it is
easy to lose sight of the opportunities. And those opportunities are
considerable. They are part of a fundamentally different narrative that is
emerging across Africa. The climate change imperative is seen as an opportunity
for Africa’s energy-poor countries to leapfrog straight to clean energy,
avoiding decades of inefficient spending on polluting energy sources.
In this 2015 “climate moment”, Africa must emphasize that making the
transition to clean energy will only be possible if the chosen pathway ends
energy poverty; if it enables countries to continue to grow and transform
economically – a “development first” approach; and if it ensures that Africa
will not become one of the world’s worst polluting continents.
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