Accelerating Sustainable Energy Transition(s) in Developing Countries

The challenges of climate change and sustainable development

Laurence Delina

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138741133
• eBook ISBN: 9781351726849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Accelerating sustainable energy transitions away from carbon-based fuel sources needs to be high on the agendas of developing countries. It is key in achieving their climate mitigation promises and sustainable energy development objectives. To bring about rapid transitions, simultaneous turns are imperative in hardware deployment, policy improvements, financing innovation, and institutional strengthening. These systematic turns, however, incur tensions when considering the multiple options available and the disruptions of entrenched power across pockets of transition innovations. These heterogeneous contradictions and their trade-offs, and uncertainties and risks have to be systematically recognized, understood, and weighed when making decisions.

This book explores how the transitions occur in fourteen developing countries and broadly surveys their technological, policy, financing, and institutional capacities in response to the three key aspects of energy transitions: achieving universal energy access, harvesting energy efficiency, and deploying renewable energy. The book shows how fragmented these approaches are, how they occur across multiple levels of governance, and how policy, financing, and institutional turns could occur in these complex settings.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of energy and climate policy, development studies, international relations, politics, strategic studies, and geography. It is also useful to policymakers and development practitioners.

1
Introduction

The year 2015 can be said to be the watershed year for an intensely globalized, yet sustainably fractured, world. For example, 2015 saw governments agreeing in New York and in Paris to two key documents that laid the foundations for the future of energy: an international agreement that would arrest the damages (and would-be damages) brought about by rapid climate change through a focus on transitioning away from an energy sector based on fossil fuel sources; and a new framework that would steer nations into an era of sustainable development for all, with energy access as a key goal.¹ This introductory chapter describes how energy is deeply intertwined with development and sustainability (1.1); how a change in the ways energy is generated, distributed, and used are essential when addressing both development and sustainability challenges in developing countries (1.2); and how developing countries can accelerate their progress in processing this change (1.3). At its core, therefore, this introduction chapter delves into the processes of a sustainable energy transition as a normative exercise that developing countries can use as a framework to simultaneously meet their development and sustainability ambitions. I also discuss key challenges and the promise of accelerating this important transitions. I then lay out the thrust of the book and the chapters ahead (1.4).

1.1. Energy, development, and climate change

Energy and fossil fuels

Human population grew from 3.8 to 7.1 billion in less than 50 years, i.e. between 1972 and 2015. Annual energy use per capita also went up from 57 to 80 gigajoules (GJ).² Over this period, total energy consumption in the two biggest economies in the global south, India and China, grew 226 and 449 per cent respectively.³ This energy consumption trend highlights the accelerating quest for mass consumption, and, following that, energy use in many developing economies. The modern global energy system has been fueling this route and spreading it far and wide.

However, the contemporary global energy system, although varied in type, is still almost homogeneously carbon-sourced. In 2015, humanity used about 0.55 exajoules (EJ) of energy – 81.7 per cent of which was produced using fossil fuel sources, a mere 10 per cent by biomass and biofuels, 4.8 per cent by nuclear, and 3.5 per cent by hydro and other renewable sources.⁴ Fuel for energy was derived largely from oil (31.4 per cent), coal (29 per cent), and, increasingly, natural gas (21.3 per cent).⁵

Fossil fuels still dominate the contemporary global energy system by a large margin. Fossil fuels not only serve as material inputs for producing modern energy; they are also – and perhaps more importantly – a principal base that continues to trigger and drive modern industries including mining, shipping, railroads, and electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. Inarguably, the dominance of fossil fuels has historically defined the way human beings have ordered societies.

Regardless of whether one is in the industrialized north or in the developing south, human dependence on energy has expanded considerably. Many tangible benefits obtained from consuming energy, collectively called ‘energy services,’ include electricity for lighting, heating, cooking, communications, or mobility. Of these services, electricity has become so integral to our daily lives that we seem to forget that electricity powers our light bulbs, televisions, cooktops, refrigerators, mobile phones, and, increasingly, vehicles. For those who have reliable, steady, and affordable access to electricity, the ease of using it and its dependability and versatility make electricity a vital part of improved productivity and quality of life. However, not every person in the world has access to modern forms of energy. Energy poverty, indeed, remains a major international development challenge.

Energy and development

Acknowledging the persistent challenge of energy poverty, the United Nations declared (in 2011) the year 2012 as the international year of sustainable energy for all,⁶ and in a subsequent document in 2013 it assigned the period 2014 to 2024 as the international decade of ‘Sustainable Energy for All.’⁷ Sustainable Energy for All has become the United Nations Secretary General’s global initiative that would mobilize action from all sectors to support three interlinked objectives: providing universal access to modern energy services; doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.⁸ Since its launch, the initiative has generated momentum, including partnerships with 106 countries and the European Union.

Further in the process of elevating the issue of sustainable energy access internationally, the United Nations General Assembly has – as it approved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 – included all three key components of the Secretary General’s initiative. Goal No. 7 of the SDGs (SDG7) elevated the need for energy access in meeting sustainable development ends to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030, while calling for a substantial increase in the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix and for doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency. SDG7, therefore, provides a stronger foundation for acknowledging the key role of improved access to modern forms of energy and the services they provide in achieving and sustaining development.

When fully achieved, SDG7 can bring about substantial change in the lives of many.⁹ Globally, 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity, which is equivalent to 17 per cent of the entire global population or about the entire population in the global north.¹⁰ Some 2.85 billion people also lack access to clean and safe energy for household cooking, an essential aspect of daily life.¹¹ Of the world’s energy poor people, two-thirds live in ten countries: four in Asia and six in sub-Saharan Africa.¹² Half of the people lacking clean cooking facilities live in only three countries: China, India, and Bangladesh.¹³

Meeting SGD7 offers a number of poverty reduction opportunities, which could lead to the development of capabilities necessary for a flourishing and high-quality life. The costs of lighting fuel in these poor households often represent over 10 per cent of their income. If this expenditure could be redirected to solar lanterns, electricity grid fees, or solar home systems, for example, it would lead to improved energy services and would save the household money.

Since energy has become a prerequisite for almost all economic activities of modern life, energy access reflects social and economic equity.¹⁴ Ensuring and providing access to energy, thus, cuts across societal lines. For instance, a person’s place in contemporary society seems to be defined by whether the person has access to energy. Modern computers and mobile technologies, and the energy system that powers them, for example, are only available to those who can afford them. An unequal distribution of energy services, therefore, only tends to exacerbate the difference between the haves and the have-nots.¹⁵

Health concerns related to energy poverty are also far reaching and include indoor air pollution, physical injury during fuel wood collection, and the consequences of a lack of refrigeration and health care services.¹⁶ The health effects of burning solid fuel indoors are devastating. Acute respiratory infections, tuberculosis, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, asthma, low birth weights, diseases of the eye, and adverse pregnancy outcomes are among these many impacts.¹⁷

Energy poverty has also strong gender dimension. Many women and girls have to walk a round trip of far distances, several times a month, carrying heavy loads of firewood on the return journey. In addition to these long fuel-collection journeys, the activity also exposes women and children to physical and sexual violence.¹⁸

Little, however, has been done to improve access to energy in much of the global south.¹⁹ Many in the developing world still face unreliable electricity, with shortages and blackouts being accepted as realities of life. In many countries, electricity remains so expensive that it is largely unaffordable to many.²⁰ With grid connection and other charges way beyond the price that poor people can afford to pay, tapping illegal electricity connections is common. Energy access, therefore, covers beyond the physical proximity to modern energy services. Access is also about the availability of affordable, improved, legal, and more efficient end-use energy devices such as improved cookstoves (those using traditional fuels but burning in a cleaner fashion, or cookstoves fueled by liquefied natural gas, electricity, or biogas), more efficient lights, water pumps, low-cost agricultural processing equipment,²¹ as well as energy-efficient housing and transport options. Broadly, energy access could refer to the affordable, stable, legal, and reliable services of cleaner energy options that ensure consistent quality.

Delivering energy services to reduce poverty, however, implies more than just delivering energy to energy-poor households.²² Invigorating sectors that create and sustain employment, business enterprises, and community services – by providing reliable electricity – are also part of this wider development picture. The sustainability of supply also matters, although, technically, ‘access’ can be achieved with unsustainable sources – at least according the to the IEA and SE4All definitions. Following the fossil-fuel-based development tracks of many countries in the global north no longer makes sense when a sustainable future for all is at stake, especially with the impacts of anthropogenic climate change.

Energy and climate change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change as ‘a change in the state of the climate that can be identified, e.g. using statistical tests, by changes in the mean temperature and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.’²³ It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.’ Parties to the Paris Agreement – the latest mechanism of the global convention to address climate change – have acknowledged that ‘climate change is a common concern of humankind’ and have recognized ‘the need for an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change.’²⁴

A progressive response is needed to avoid the dangerous impact of climate change; that means limiting global average temperature increase to, at most, 2°C above preindustrial levels. This temperature target necessitates stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations below 450 parts per million.²⁵ While these numbers provide some quantifiable targets, a progressive climate response entails transforming the global economy away from dependence on carbon-based energy sources. Science has already determined that curtailing future emissions from the energy sector, which constitute the most important source of GHG emissions responsible for anthropogenic climate change, is necessary in the decarbonization agenda.

The IPCC reports that ‘CO ₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed about 78 per cent of the total GHG emission increase from 1970 to 2010.’²⁶ From 15,633 metric tons (Mt) of CO ₂ in 1973, energy-based emissions rose to 31,734 Mt of CO ₂ in 2015 – a doubling in less than 50 years.²⁷ In 2015, coal burning contributed 44 per cent of CO ₂ emissions, oil 35 per cent, and natural gas 20 per cent.²⁸ Emissions from energy sector were at 72 per cent of this total coal combustion.²⁹

The consequences of increasing GHG concentration in the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Units of measurement
• Currencies
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Study countries
• 3 Transition hardware
• 4 Accelerating deployment
• 5 Policy turn
• 6 Financing turn
• 7 Institutional turn
• 8 Conclusion
• Index