Climate change is a global issue. Whoever produces greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and wherever these emissions occur, they eventually spread in the upper atmosphere, and by interacting with incident solar energy, play a role in changing the climate everywhere. Local effects, however, will differ, depending on topography and geography, and the impact of these effects will also differ, depending on the local social and economic situation. Some of the largest impacts may fall on those countries least equipped to deal with them—for example, poor countries in the global south, where weather-related stresses (e.g. due to flooding, high temperatures, and droughts) are already a problem. A 4° or 5 °C average temperature rise could make parts of the equatorial belt almost uninhabitable in summer, while the associated sea level rise and storms could inundate many key coastal cities and food growing areas (IPCC 2017).

In the short term, the only option available to most poor countries is to adapt as best they can to the changes—for example, by better emergency planning and building more flood defences. This will not solve the problem, which will continue to get worse unless more radical solutions are adopted worldwide. The destruction of forests, which act as carbon sinks, makes the problem worse, as do some farming methods, but the core problem is the combustion of fossil fuels in power stations, homes, by industry, and also in vehicles, including ships and aircraft. Around 80% of the energy used at present globally comes from the combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas. That underpins much of the global economy. Reforestation would help by creating a renewed carbon sink, but it would not allow us to continue to burn off the remaining fossil resources on any significant scale. The production and release of carbon dioxide gas has to stop, and soon.

The implication is that we must switch, globally, to using non-fossil energy sources for energy production. Using energy more efficiently will also help, so that less energy has to be produced, but however much we avoid energy waste, we will still need energy sources, and the only non-fossil options we have at present are nuclear and the various renewable sources.

Nuclear power has a range of significant economic, safety, and security problems, making it arguably not well suited to wide-scale expansion, whereas renewables are generally much more benign. Although they do have their own problems, the situation at present is that while the global nuclear contribution seems fairly static at around 11% of global electricity, renewables are expanding rapidly, already supplying over 24% of global electricity, with costs continuing to fall. Projections are that they could be supplying up to 50% of electricity in many countries by 2030 (some have already reached that) and much more globally by 2050, given proper support. Indeed, in some countries, near 100% may be possible by then, with renewables also making major contributions to heat supply and transport (Elliott 2015). Some even say that most countries can get near 100% of their total energy from renewables by 2050, given the political will (Jacobson et al. 2017).

That will all require urgent action, something that is also clear from the even more pressing issue of poor air quality, as is now apparent in cities in many rapidly industrialising countries. Dealing with that major health problem will help deal with climate change too.

The technical agenda is thus fairly clear, and only controversial amongst those who are in denial about climate change and/or its causes, or who believe that we can clean up, or compensate for, continued fossil fuel use in some way. It may be possible to capture carbon dioxide gas emissions from power plants and store them underground, but this is expensive, and as yet unproven at scale. Even if developed fully, it would not allow us to continue with large-scale use of fossil fuels. There would not be room to store all the gas indefinitely and securely. An alternative, somewhat desperate, ‘geoengineering’ approach is to allow combustion, but reduce incident solar energy, to compensate for the warming that would result, by blocking out sunlight, for example, by pumping aerosol particles into the upper atmosphere or even by installing huge sunshades in geostationary orbit. It would seem to make more sense to use the solar energy and stop using fossil fuels.

The already industrialised countries have benefitted from the use of fossil fuels for a hundred years or more, so it is sometimes argued that dealing with climate change is their responsibility. Certainly, they have the wealth to start the process. But emissions from the newly industrialising countries are rising fast and others may want to copy their economic growth patterns. So, it is a global problem. The Western countries have embarked on carbon dioxide emission mitigation programmes with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with some already having achieved quite high percentages of renewable power contribution—for example, 34% in Germany, 43% in Denmark, and around 50% in Sweden. They intend to continue.

However, it is also sometimes argued that investment in renewable energy projects is more cost effective in carbon-saving terms in countries which are further back in the process, so that big percentage gains can be made. That, along with wider humanitarian and political concerns, has led to some aid-orientated projects linked to wider development programmes in poor countries, support for the deployment of new energy systems being seen as part of the development process. Western countries’ interest in such initiatives has also been stimulated by the potential for creating new markets for their technology. For example, Shell and BP were, at one time, quite heavily committed to offering their PV (photo-voltaic) solar systems for use in Africa. That interest waned as markets tightened and other more conventional markets looked more attractive to them, but developing countries remain a potential target for offerings from the West, and increasingly from the industrialised East, with the offerings not just being limited to solar; vendors of nuclear technology are also much in evidence.

As global concerns about climate change have grown, international agencies have developed policies and programmes to support the diffusion of non-fossil technologies, with renewables usually seen as the most relevant, as in the UN Sustainable Energy for All programme (SE4All 2017). The assumption is that renewables will be rolled out globally, with a doubling of global renewable capacity and energy use efficiency by 2030, but that less developed countries needed extra support. This book looks at how that has played out in practice so far and at some of the policy implications, focusing on experiences with the European Union (EU)–supported programme in Africa. There are certainly many issues to resolve. For example, the relative roles of small local off-grid projects and large-scale grid-linked projects, the relationship between grant aid and open markets, and the choice and design of financial support systems.

Experiences with the development of renewables in Europe has shaped views on some of these questions, although that may not actually be helpful—the situation elsewhere is often very different. However, there are some overlaps, especially in the case of some of the new EU member states, so it still useful to look at how, in the early phase of the EU enlargement exercise, renewables fared there, as these countries sought to synchronise their policies with the wider EU programmes, helped by the EU. This book therefore starts off by looking at the development of renewable energy policy and practices in the new EU states in the early days of the EU enlargement programme, after they had separated from the old Soviet Bloc. It also takes a brief look at what has happened since in Russia and the other ex-Soviet Bloc states.

While the EU was initially in the lead in terms of capacity and the USA had a major role in technology development, subsequently, the global picture has moved on, with China taking a lead in renewable capacity deployment, and expansion in the East generally outpacing that in the West. South America is also beginning to play a major role and the longer-term development pattern may see Africa also play a key role, though that may depend on, amongst other things, how the current support programmes play out, given that some African countries are much less developed than others. Aid and special support can certainly help. But it also has problems (with potential risks of corruption and dependency), and although, as the countries develop and the technologies mature, aid may be less needed, for the moment, it remains essential in most places.

Currently, corporate and state investment in renewables is growing, with developing countries taking on more of a lead (see Fig. 1.1). Nevertheless, much of the progress that is being made in them still relies on foreign aid, and, as within the industrial countries, renewables have been promoted via subsidies. These subsidies can lead to attacks by those committed to free markets, heightened by claims that much of the funding is inappropriate or wasted.

However, renewable energy technology is developing rapidly, and in some contexts, it is now competitive with conventional sources unaided. There is still some way to go in some cases, but already, in many cases, far from representing a major cost and economic drain, a shift to using renewables, along with energy saving, looks like a wise investment in commercial terms. Moreover, given the social and economic cost of air pollution and climate change, a shift to renewables is even more attractive. The growth of employment in the renewables sector is also an attraction—nearly 10 million people are already working in the area globally.

There will, of course, be those who want to cling on to the old energy sources, to extract the last possible economic gains they can get from them, with those with vested interests in the technological status quo resisting change. Change is usually painful and much is often made of the real or imagined dislocations and impacts resulting from change. Renewables certainly can have local environmental and social impacts, although in most cases, they are small and can be minimised, with potentially negative reactions avoided by sensitive local consultation and participation. That has been one of the lessons from renewable deployment in the West.

That may not be the case for all renewable technologies, especially for large capital-intensive hydro projects of the type sometimes proposed for developing countries. They may involve large external funding sources, major local impacts, and little local participation or benefit. By contrast, smaller-scale, low-impact renewable projects—for example, using solar or wind energy—can be locally owned and controlled and are much less likely to be opposed. Indeed, they are likely to be welcomed and promoted locally. That too is a lesson learnt from the West. About 40% of Germany’s renewables capacity is owned by local individuals or community groups, as are many of the wind farms in Denmark.

The case studies presented in this book provide some examples of this sort of approach, which ties in well with some current ‘bottom-up’ grass roots-orientated approaches to development aid. In the longer term, that might lead to local community-based cooperative management of projects and local economic development and technological capacity—very different...