What does cutting out fossil fuels look like from a practical perspective?
Africa has the largest potential in the world in terms of harnessing the power of solar.
The fossil fuels industry is not sustainable. Coal power plants have a timeline after which they eventually retire and solar and renewables must be phased in to replace them.
Let’s look at Kenya. It now has 90 per cent of its energy coming from renewable energy. Kenya is a practical example of a country that can run entirely on renewables. And it has a promising policy to achieve 100 per cent by 2030.
What do you say to people who believe it’s unrealistic to fully phase out fossil fuels?
We have over 600 million Africans without access to electricity. That’s equivalent to 10 countries the same size of Kenya.
If the fossil fuel industry cannot provide for this electricity access, then how can we not question it?
The mining that we get from Africa, be it coal, oil and gas – over 80 per cent is exported to other countries. Then for that which is refined, they come back to us and we buy it at a premium.
No single African country must allow its critical minerals to leave the country in raw form. Let’s mine minerals needed for clean energy, let’s refine and let’s own the entire process and the value chain.
What will the initiative be calling for at COP30?
The Journey Fund was announced in the week before COP, which aims to benefit those that have joined the treaty.
The fund will call on (the) private sector to divest from fossil fuels and invest in green transitions in jurisdictions that support the Fossil Fuel Treaty.
We have philanthropic partners interested in financing this, so it’s going to be a mix of revenue from different sources, including developed countries.
Then we hope also to have a ministerial convening of the supporting nations, the 17 of them, alongside observers.
We also plan to discuss green minerals needed to support this transition and how the communities where these minerals are situated can be in control of this through local mineral processing.
This is a huge opportunity for Africa.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities the treaty has faced?
The treaty is calling for a big change. And change, no matter how small or big, always faces some kind of resistance.
For so many decades, the world has been driven by fossil fuels as the primary source of energy and the fossil fuel industry will try whatever they can to safeguard their businesses.
There is that heavy cost involved in just managing the change, in campaigning for and communicating this change.
But this is also an opportunity and that is renewables.
For Africa, we believe this will open up more development in a manner that has never been witnessed before. Africa is going to be a producer and consumer of its own clean energy.
Tackling climate change requires this global cooperation. No single country, no single continent, can do it alone.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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