Africa needs country-specific narratives for a clean energy future

As parts of the African continent embrace clean energy, experts led by institutions including UCL are calling for a shift in how politicians, funders and researchers approach the transition, taking each country's radically different energy needs and pathways into account. For the paper, published in Nature Energy , the team of 40 African academics maintain that Western countries have so far dominated energy conversations and tended to treat the continent as a homogenous collective with similar energy needs and low carbon pathways. Doing so does not take into account national circumstances and realities and makes the transition too prescriptive, allowing for little input from nations themselves. The authors, from institutions including UCL, the UN Economic Commission and the University of Oxford, analysed all 54 African countries and explored the energy systems of four in detail - Ethiopia, South Africa, Mozambique and Burkina Faso - revealing a snapshot of very different energy systems and needs. For example, Ethiopia has pursued green economic growth since the mid-2000s and around 90% of its electricity comes from hydropower, with the remaining 10% coming from wind and solar power. However, Mozambique has significant natural gas reserves, which it is poised to make long-term investments in, rather than renewable resources. Other countries making similar decisions include Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Mauritania and Senegal.