By Vijay Jayaraj
As political elites call on Africa and other developing nations to adopt absurd green energy targets, consider that they have blood on their hands.
Those who discourage the use of fossil fuels in Africa in favor of wind and solar have played a direct role in the high morbidity and mortality rates on the continent. Homes don’t have electricity for lights and refrigerators, businesses don’t have enough energy to improve productivity, and millions of people languish in extreme poverty – all due to a lack of energy that should be will be available from already demonized fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.
About half of Africans can’t get electricity when they want it. Only 14.3% of people in the Central African Republic have access to electricity. The combined electricity production of 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa is equal to that of a single Western economy like Spain.
The most devastating effects of this energy shortage are felt in healthcare centres, 60% of which are in sub-Saharan Africa without electricity. According to the United States Agency for International Development, 100,000 public health facilities in areas without access to reliable electricity.
“In 2012, 150 infants receiving oxygen at a hospital in Jinja died after utility company UMEME Uganda Limited cut off power without prior notice. In 2015, Kiboga District Hospital was without power for over a month,” report an article from the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development in Uganda.
“Doctors said they were unable to provide basic first aid measures such as sutures because they were unable to disinfect instruments,” the article continued. “Vaccines and blood are spoiled because of the lack of refrigerators. Laboratories cannot perform diagnostic services without electricity. The obstetrics department was completely in the dark and could not perform a cesarean section. Mothers died en route to the capital Kampala or private clinics for urgent obstetric care.”
This situation is not unique to sub-Saharan Africa. Even South Africa’s advanced economy faces frequent power outages and reduced loads due to mismanagement by state utility company ESKOM, whose policies are currently affected by the hostility of the climate movement towards fossil fuels.
In South Africa, most of the 420 hospitals and 3,000 clinics – all run by the state – do not have reliable backup generators. President of the South African Medical Association speak“(T)there is a very strong possibility that people who are vulnerable when entering (operating room), giving birth in a hospital or in the ICU may experience serious complications from offloading.”
One hospital in July halted all surgeries because of an unstable power supply.
Doctors are using the light from their phones to perform emergency surgeries and procedures.
“In the event of a power outage, they will do their best if they are doing the procedure so that the patient can survive, especially when it is clear that the patient’s life may be in danger if they do not intervene. and the electricity won’t come back.” speak Sibongiseni Delihlazo, spokesman for the SA Democratic Nursing Foundation.
But why rely on redundancy when state-owned power company ESKOM can use coal? Because ESKOM has committed to giving up coal in the name of climate change.
Africa’s crisis cannot be solved without reliable and affordable energy. “Nearly $20 billion is needed for global electrification across sub-Saharan Africa, with about $10 billion annually needed for West and Central Africa.” speak Riccardo Puliti, World Bank’s Vice President of Infrastructure.
The problem is that new investments are being directed towards costly and unreliable wind and solar projects when coal is the obvious solution to energy poverty in Africa. The African Development Bank has stopped funding new coal projects. So there are dozens of other aid agencies based in Europe and North America.
Africans need electricity right now. Not some day in the future, after their chances of surviving a hospital operation are denied by a policymaker enamored with fanciful visions of a carbon-free world. .
This commentary was first published at Real pure energyDecember 2, 2022 and can be accessed here.
Vijay Jayaraj is a research associate at CO2 Alliance, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental science from the University of East Anglia, UK, and resides in India.
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