Dealing with five challenges

The fact that industrialised countries like Germany, Britain and Japan or an oil company like Shell are pursuing ambitious plans to deploy renewable energies should stimulate thought among politicians dealing with energy and development as well as among multilateral development banks. Access to energy is proving to be a key issue for development. The resources and techniques we use are relevant for much more than only climate protection.

[ By Jürgen Trittin ]

We have long since exceeded the capacity of the earth’s atmosphere to absorb CO2 without dramatic climate change. In itself, climate change is a fundamental reason to push for the global deployment of renewable energies. In comparison, the fact that reserves of oil, natural gas and coal are finite, is only a minor motivation. We should, however, be aware of dwindling fossil fuels becoming considerably more expensive sources of energy. Power plants have an operating life of up to 50 or 60 years. A decision in favour of fossil fuels today may prove to be very expensive in future.

A start has been made to re-draft energy policy. Germany, for example, wants to use renewable energies for at least 20% of its electricity requirements by 2020 and half of its total energy requirements by 2050. At their regional preparatory conference for Renewables 2004 in October, Latin American and Caribbean countries – including so-called “least developed countries” as well as emerging economies – resolved to use renewables for 10% of their total energy consumption by 2010. If this intention is followed up by action, the region will become one of the leaders in the global deployment of renewable energies.
Why is this diverse subcontinent making renewable energies a priority in spite of its having a host of other pressing problems? Well, deploying renewable energies solves five problems at once.


1. Renewable energies are local energies

Some African countries have to spend up to 80% of their foreign exchange revenues on energy imports. This money is not available for other tasks, such as investment in vocational training for the growing young population or for grants for business start-up. It cannot be used to prevent AIDS, to set up an efficient government, to build rail networks, to protect the environment or to support rural areas. Growing dependence on imported energy drastically reduces the scope of national budgets.

Every country has local energies: biomass, sun, wind, water and the natural heat of the earth. These are found to different extents everywhere. Of course, the best energy mix will vary accordingly in each country. For the efficient use of energy – especially the sustained use of renewable energies – we need technically adapted applications and suitable sources of finance. Unfortunately, the mistaken belief often continues that renewable energy is cheap energy for so-called “third world” countries, while the north continues to rely on nuclear and fossil fuels.

Large solar thermal power plants in the earth’s sun-belt can supply enough electric power for entire cities and regions. Energy imports would no longer be necessary. On the contrary: ideas such as MEDREP (Mediterranean Renewable Energy Partnership) and TREC (Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation) – two topics of the Arab preparatory conference in Sanaa (Yemen) in April – even offer the prospect of income in foreign currency in the mid-term. Such revenues from energy exports could surpass the amounts now earned by selling bananas, soybeans or copper. Northern Africa has enough sun and wind and more than enough space to supply renewable electric power for its own use and for that of southern Europe too. Arab nations could thus keep on selling energy even after their oil will have dried up.


2. Economic activity in town and country generates work and prosperity

In the poorer southern countries, people in rural areas live almost solely from farming, which does not generate much money. In many cases, they have no access at all or no affordable access to modern energy. Trade and industry will not develop if there is no affordable and reliable access to electricity. People, trade and industry consequently move to where there is such power. Slums sprawl around cities and contribute to social problems.

Renewable energies, on the other hand, are mostly decentralised: wind farms and solar power plants can be set up for individual villages or production sites. There is also the possibility of efficient biomass power generation and, in some parts of the world, of relying on the natural heat of the earth. A whole host of possibilities opens up once there is electricity: education, vocational training, industry, services. Renewable energies are the key to future prospects, especially in a globalised world. Young people in particular will appreciate rural opportunities offered by an electricity supply. Otherwise, they will, in growing numbers, flock to overburdened urban labour markets.

Not only does the use of electricity create jobs, but so does the deployment of renewable energies. Not only planning, construction, maintenance and energy advice need to be taken care of. There is much evidence that the establishment of wind farms, biomass plants and photovoltaic installations would in itself create thousands of jobs in countries in the south – provided there are trustworthy planning targets. Why should the installations be produced in countries such as Germany, Japan or the USA where wage costs are high if that could be done more economically where these components are actually to be used? This would result in additional export opportunities and trigger further development.


3. Gender equity requires access to modern energy

Many countries in the south want to enforce the human right to education for girls and women. They recognize that educating girls is of great importance for reducing population growth and that educated mothers raise children who are eager to learn. They appreciate qualified women as members of their work forces.

However, girls’ education and literacy programmes for women all too often fail because there is no access to energy. Instead of going to school, girls must carry water and gather wood. Nearby solar springs, energy-efficient stoves and water- or solar-powered mills are necessary for women and children to even have the time to go to school. Far too many still spend one third of their lives carrying water and wood. Furthermore, attending lessons is generally not possible for women unless their village has an electricity supply or the school has a solar energy system. After all, women work during the day and do not have time for education before sunset

Renewable energies can fulfil an essential precondition for reaching the target set by the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995: the provision of basic education for all boys and girls by 2015.


4. Renewable energies protect local water resources and prevent illness

In 2025, up to 670 million people will live in arid and desert regions. Whoever still promotes fossil or atomic energy, is adding to the problem. Just like agriculture, the energy industry is one of the biggest users of water. It is for good reason that power stations are built next to rivers rather than where coal, gas and oil are found. Fossil and nuclear power stations account for 74% of total water consumption in Germany and for 40% throughout the EU. Agriculture only uses 27% of water provided in the EU.

Some of the water used to cool power stations is discharged into the rivers, having been heated. In view of climate change, this is detrimental for aquatic animal and plant life. An even bigger problem is caused by the evaporation of cooling water. This contributes to regions becoming more arid.

On the other hand, renewable energies, for the most part, do not use water; so fresh water stores are maintained. Solar thermal power plants would even be very well suited for desalinating salt water on a large scale. Individual windmills or photovoltaic installations combined with biomass generators could carry this out almost anywhere on a decentralized basis.

Renewable energies, however, have still more advantages. As their production creates hardly any harmful by-products (compared to air pollution through conventional energy conversion), cancer rates tend to drop drastically, even in cities. And how many women have had to expose their lungs and eyes to biting smoke when cooking day after day over more or less open fires? Millions of women lose their eyesight due to smoke. Renewable energies are mostly clean energies. They prevent air pollution and, accordingly, illnesses.


5. The deployment of renewable energies limits the damage of climate change

The deployment of renewable energies is worthwhile for countries in the south not only with respect to their economies and societies. Countries in the south have an especially vital interest in limiting climate change, which affects them much more negatively than it does the north.

80% of the CO2 build-up in the earth’s atmosphere originated in advanced nations. We in the north are still the biggest polluters. At first sight, it may therefore seem understandable that individual politicians or governments should back supposedly cheap conventional energy paths and want to place responsibility for the energy revolution in the hands of the north alone.

According to a forecast by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the average global temperature will rise between 1.4 and 5.8°C in this century. The goal is to limit this warming to only two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. This level will be quickly exceeded, if we do not apply alternative strategies extensively and consistently. The average temperature is already rising by 0.1° every ten years. A studied commissioned by the US Department of Defence sees climate change as a greater threat than terrorism. Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. We must use all meaningful tools to prevent a tripling of the CO2-content in the atmosphere by 2100.

Climate change is not a future horror story. It has been going on for a long time: glaciers and polar icecaps are melting, the sea level is rising. In Latin America, El Niño is sending more and more fishermen into poverty. Time and time again, hurricanes and floods destroy everything people have laboriously built up overnight, leaving the survivors in absolute poverty. Draughts and desertification are forcing people to leave their villages. The damage caused by climate change is already growing every year. In 2003, the insured damage alone added up to 63 billion dollars – more than was globally spent on official development assistance. Note that this sum does not even include the damage suffered by poor populations in southern countries. If we do not use all options to protect the climate in north and south, we will not meet the development objective of halving the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015.

Therefore, countries in the south must also support climate protection and sustainable energy provision. This includes the increasing use of renewable energies in addition to the efficient use of dwindling fossil fuels. There is not other way for these countries to gain access to necessary energy services without catastrophic consequences, which would affect them most of all. Of course, these countries’ demand for more energy is completely justified and widely accepted internationally. If they are still to benefit by the next turn of the century, there is no alternative to the accelerated deployment of renewable energies in north and south.