Access to electricity significantly drives societal progress by enhancing healthcare, education, and economic growth. However, Africa faces a considerable disparity with notably lower rates of electricity accessibility compared to other regions globally. Addressing this disparity is imperative to empower African communities, enabling opportunities for development, innovation, and an improved standard of living for millions.
The issue of electricity access, particularly in Africa, is directly related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7), which aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030. SDG 7 is an integral part of the global development agenda, emphasizing the importance of energy in achieving several other sustainable development goals.
Let’s list the issues of electricity access in Africa with some details:
– Access to Electricity (Energy Poverty): SDG 7 aims to provide electricity for all, but many in Africa still lack modern energy services. Enhancing electricity access is essential to reduce energy poverty, improve livelihoods, and drive socio-economic development.
– Promotion of Renewable Energy: SDG 7 promotes renewable energy, and many African nations are turning to solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power. These sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels provide clean energy and expand electricity access.
– Efficiency and Infrastructure Development: SDG 7 calls for better energy efficiency and infrastructure in Africa. Modernizing energy infrastructure and overcoming transmission and distribution challenges are vital to expand electricity access.
– Addressing Energy Inequality: SDG 7 seeks to bridge the energy gap, ensuring marginalized and rural communities have equal access to energy services. In Africa, rural populations often lack basic electricity, making energy poverty a pressing issue. Targeting these communities is essential to achieving SDG 7.
– Sustainable Economic Growth: Electricity fuels economic growth by enabling businesses, industries, healthcare, education, and overall productivity. Achieving SDG 7 in Africa can drive sustainable economic prosperity across the continent.
– Partnerships and Investments: SDG 7 highlights the need for partnerships, collaborations, and investments in the energy sector. African countries require significant domestic and international investments, as well as partnerships between governments, private entities, and international organizations, to achieve SDG 7 and improve energy access and infrastructure.
In summary, tackling energy access challenges in Africa aligns with SDG 7’s goals and indicators. Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is crucial for Africa’s development and achieving other Sustainable Development Goals.
Despite rising commodity prices and concerns from international leaders about energy scarcities and gas costs at the pump, millions of people in Africa still do not have access to electricity.
Only three nations in West and Central Africa are on track to provide power to every citizen by 2030, according to the SDG7 agenda. In the region, 263 million people will go without electricity in ten years if things continue at this poor rate. One of the lowest rates of electricity access in the world is in West Africa, where only 8% of rural inhabitants and 42% of the general population have access to it.
These numbers—some much too large, some much too small—have serious repercussions. Enhancing people’s chances and options starts with electricity. Access is essential for increasing economic activity and helps to improve human capital, which is an investment in a nation’s future potential.
Children cannot complete their education at night without electricity. Businesspeople are unable to trade with one another or obtain market information. Even worse, as the COVID-19 epidemic has so clearly demonstrated, a lack of energy restricts hospital and emergency services, putting patients at even greater risk and tainting priceless medications.
How will West and Central Africa be powered?
Accelerating the transition to universal energy access is crucial right now in order to fuel the continent’s economic change and encourage socioeconomic inclusion. Without consistent access to electricity, a nation’s social fabric may suffer, with those without it growing weary of inequality. Here are some audacious strategies that are needed to address the energy access challenge in the African continent.
One of the things can be done is to make utilities profitable. Many electricity suppliers in the area are cash-strapped and run infrastructure and a generation fleet that is outdated and in poor condition. As a result, they are unable to provide their consumers with electricity that is both dependable and economical, much alone provide electricity to those who currently have to rely on subpar alternatives to electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, less than half of the utilities make back their operating costs, which causes GDP losses of up to 4% in some nations.
Lowering the cost of supply is a requirement for increasing electricity access to those who are currently without it, typically lower-income and frequently remote households. This is accomplished by improving the performance of national utilities and greening their power generation mix.
West and Central African nations must go outside their boundaries in order to further link their national utilities and grids to other systems in the area. This is a crucial second point. Without effective regional trade, many nations would be largely dependent on a small number of energy supplies and polluting generation sources, necessitating the importation of fuel at volatile international oil prices.
Last but not least, political leaders will need to dedicate a lot of time and effort to obtaining universal access to power, especially when it comes to creating laws and rules that can draw reputable investments.
Antarctica has been suffering for years due to the high CO2 emission levels around the globe.
I have brought an expert that would be able to shed light on the matter based on personal experience and what he and his family have been witnessing for the past decades.
Please help me in welcoming Frosty the Penguin!
Frosty was born and raised in Antarctica by a family of scientists.
His grandfather was among the first penguins to witness the melting of glaciers and the family kept records of changes that have occurred throughout the years in Antarctica.
While growing up, his surroundings were changing rapidly due to higher temperatures.
The sled that he used to play at with his penguin friends has turned into water; friends from other species have already left, or even died at sea.
Today Carbon Dioxide levels are rising rapidly from 400mg/L in 2019, to 409mg/L in 2020 to reach 420mg/L in 2021 due to the burning of fossil fuels, industrial processes, and tropical forest destruction.
As a result, Glaciers are rapidly melting and Frosty is facing the danger of migration or even death.
CO2 emission in 1980 started increasing drastically in countries like China going from 1.5 gigatons of CO2 to a record high of 11 gigatons in 2017!
Also, countries like Indonesia have witnessed a consistent increase in emissions while we see that Germany in gypsy blue has seen a drop in their emissions despite being the number 1 producer in Europe; they must be doing something right.
Based on his recent study in 2018, countries like USA, Canada, Russia, Australia and China are among the highest emitting countries of CO2 compared to the European Continent (excluding Russia), the African continent and South America.
For Frosty, this means that the sea ice extent which represents the area of ocean where at least 15 percent of the surface is frozen has been shrinking especially in recent years due to our negligence.
However, it is still not too late to help Frosty have his home back!!
To decrease the level of CO2 emissions, many solutions are available such as:
Substituting car trips with bike rides or any form of public transportation.
Apply Emission Regulations on automobiles
Plant trees
Switch to Clean Energy
All of these solutions are easily implemented through deploying bicycles for rent off the streets, Carpooling or using Hybrid/Electric Cars as well as renewable energy.
The cheapest and considered to be one of the most efficient ways of reducing CO2 emission is planting trees to absorb and store the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
We can see these reforms being applied mostly in the European continent, Eastern and Western, which lead to the decrease in the level of CO2 from 1990 till 2018 as per the World Map visualization.
We urge countries to follow the steps of Europe and ameliorate their CO2 emissions by planting trees, adopting renewable energy and encouraging people to use lower emitting means of transportation
