How Could Paris Climate Talks Change Africa’s Future?

The UN meeting will focus on developed countries’ plans to curb global warming, but it could give Africa money to embrace clean energy.
 “It’s never been like this before,” said senior park ranger Solomzi Radebe, who’s been giving tours here for 15 years. Unless a lot of rain falls soon, he said, the lethal clashes could cause herds to disappear.

The drought, South Africa’s worst in decades, has prompted farmers to pray for the heavens to open up and for Johannesburg to impose water restrictions such as three-minute showers. It could get worse. A landmark UN report says rising temperatures will “amplify existing stress on water availability” in Africa—a continent that’s contributed little to climate change but is reeling from its impacts.

A new round of climate talks, slated to begin November 30 in Paris, aims to address this. Countries have pledged to cut their planet-warming emissions of greenhouse gases. Richer nations have also pledged $100 billion a year to help poorer ones adapt to climate change and adopt clean sources of energy.

“Africa could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of COP21,” UN’s Vincent Kitio said at National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge forum this month in Johannesburg on sub-Saharan Africa’s future. Kitio was referring to the Paris talks, known as COP21 because they’re the 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties—nations that make up the UN Framework on Climate Change.

Other forum participants agreed. “It’s a huge opportunity for Africa,” said Joanne Yawitch, CEO of National Business Initiative, a group of companies seeking sustainable growth. She said the climate funds could enable the region to “leapfrog” development, skipping dirtier fossil fuels in favor of zero-carbon power sources such as solar and wind and a diverse energy mix.

A Withering Challenge

The shift won’t come easy. Almost half of sub-Saharan Africans live in extreme poverty with daily incomes of less than $1.25, and two of every three people—a whopping 620 million—live without electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. Only in a handful of countries such as South Africa, which relies mostly on coal, do at least half of the people have access to the grid.

“The scale of the problem is so huge that it’s difficult to get across the finish line,” said David Bowers, vice president of Africa Finance Corporation, adding that both small and large projects are needed.

Consider this: Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 13 percent of the world’s population but only 4 percent of global energy demand and resulting carbon emissions. “African countries have contributed the least to carbon climate change,” David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s International Climate Initiative, said in an interview.

Still, they’re suffering the consequences. In recent decades, drought has repeatedly decimated crops and caused massive starvation as well as upheaval. In a May speech, President Barack Obama linked the dryness to violence: “Severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram.”

The challenges could intensify. “You have a perfect storm,” said Chris Funk,  research director of the Climate Hazards Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara, referring to the potent mix of rising temperatures, increasing dryness, and a fast-growing population.

Climate scientists don’t blame all drought on global warming, but they do find a nexus in certain regions. Columbia University researchers reported in October that the Horn of Africa, which includes Ethiopia and Somalia, is drying at an unusually fast pace and will continue to do so with rising carbon emissions.

Similarly, in a study released earlier this month, Funk’s team found that climate change helped cause the severe drought in East Africa last year. Looking at current weather data, Funk said it’s now doing the same in South Africa.

Climate impacts are exacerbating other obstacles to prosperity in Africa, including corruption, political instability, and a lack of transparency, said several of the forum’s two dozen participants.

A Continent of Possibilities

Yet Africa could be the envy of California. It’s vast—the size of the United States, China, India, and Europe combined—and sunny. In fact, it averages at least 320 days of bright sunlight each year. That exceeds averages for the Golden State, which now gets five percent of its electricity from solar power.