There is a rapidly growing threat of global warming and climate change occurring globally, including in Africa. It has been identified that global warming significantly contributes to the climate change challenge. Notably, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas responsible for global warming across the earth's surface. Carbon dioxide is known to trap the heat from sunlight and subsequently forming a blanket of heat in the atmosphere. However, through photosynthetic chemical reactions of forests, carbon dioxide can be absorbed from the atmosphere, combined with sunlight, to generate energy for plants. Trees form diverse ecological systems of forests and act as the world's largest and effective living storehouses for carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere.

Fortunately, through photosynthesis, forest plants can produce oxygen gas into the atmosphere for the environments' benefit. Thus, the presence of forests significantly contributes to curbing the negative impacts of global warming and resultant climate change. This is because, through eliminating carbon dioxide and subsequently producing oxygen gas into the atmosphere, forest plants bring an atmospheric balance that may potentially reduce global warming and correct climate change.[1]

Consequently, deforestation has been identified to increase global warming and climate change significantly. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported that indigenous African forests are being remarkably cut down at approximately 4 million hectares per year.[2] Unfortunately, this rate of deforestation in Africa is twice the average deforestation rate across the world. Africa's deforestation is predominantly motivated by clearing land for agricultural activities such as crop cultivation and animal grazing, development of housing settlements and urbanization, and fuel utilization intended for domestic purposes.

For instance, an estimated 90% of wood is removed from African forests and woodlands for fuel purposes. Furthermore, 29% of that wood is converted into charcoal.[3] The production of wood charcoal in Africa has approximately doubled in the last 20 years due to a steady increase in market demand. As such, this has accounted for about two-thirds of global production. Consequently, this has led to massive deforestation across the African continent.

There is a need for African countries to consider effectively reducing and mitigating deforestation for fuel purposes to preserve Africa's forests. Thus, adopting environmentally friendly energy technology solutions is a needed priority for the African continent to prevent global warming and fight climate change.

The African Union's Agenda 2063 aspires towards harnessing all Africa's energy resources to guarantee contemporary, systematic, dependable, frugal, renewable, and environmentally friendly energy sources for African households, businesses, industries, and institutions.[4] Therefore, there is a need for African countries to replace firewood and charcoal that are currently predominant fuel technology sources for several African communities, with emerging household fuel sources and clean energy technology.

Emerging energy sources include biogas as clean cooking fuel. This environmentally friendly fuel source is produced through an anaerobic digestion technology with various raw material such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste.[5] On the other hand, ethanol and gel fuel are other fuel sources that are being considered for clean energy technology production. For instance, several African countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, among others, are currently distilling ethanol at significant proportions to supplement their energy sources. This is because ethanol is well suited towards meeting the urban population's energy needs because of its large production output potential from ethanol distilleries.[6]

Electricity is another efficient source of energy that can be utilized by Africans. However, electrical energy grids in most African countries are poorly developed. Thus, to counter this electricity access challenge, there is a drive for African governments to consider utilizing microgrids drawing electrical power from renewable energy sources such as windmills and solar energy.[7] As such, the African High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) has advocated for Africa's Member States to consider harnessing microgrid technology to supply electricity to African households. Such strategic measures can improve electricity access across the African continent. Furthermore, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is another energy source gaining momentum utilization across the continent suitable for cooking stoves in households. Currently, LPG is extensively utilized in several African countries such as Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya, among others.[8]

Infrastructural investments are currently underway in several African countries towards developing new cooking energy technologies and alternative energy sources.[9] However, Africa's uptake of these environmentally friendly energy sources and accompanying emerging technologies have been minimal due to several factors such as costs and infrastructure. The current high cost of emerging clean energy technologies has prohibited the seamless uptake of these clean energy technologies among many African communities. As such, African communities are still hesitant towards adopting these new technologies for everyday utilization. Most importantly, Africa's underdeveloped infrastructure still requires more rehabilitation and upgrade to improve uptake, reliability, accessibility, and availability of these technologies in Africa's marketplaces.[10]

APET encourages African governments in developing strategic policy, infrastructural, and implementation frameworks that can foster and revitalize the utilization of environmentally friendly and emerging and clean energy source technologies suitable for household utilization. Notably, the creation of environmentally friendly cooking fuel technology initiatives will provide a conducive and enabling environment for clean energy technologies. In addition, the adaptation of such technologies can be implemented in collaboration with the private sector by enabling policy frameworks. Consequently, through the adoption and adaptation of alternative clean energy sources and technologies, African countries can contribute to fighting global warming and climate change. This is because such measures can curb climate change through protected and replenished forests while affording Africa's households with environmentally friendly fuel sources and clean energy technologies.

Authors: APET Secretariat

This is the 11th post in a blog series to be published in 2021 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

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[1] S. Fawzy, A.I. Osman, J. Doran, D.W. Rooney, Strategies for mitigation of climate change: a review, Environmental Chemistry Letters 18 (2020) 2069–2094. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-020-01059-w.

[2] https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2008/saving-africa%E2%80%99s-forests-%E2%80%98lungs-world%E2%80%99#:~:text=But%20they%20are%20disappearing%20at,twice%20the%20world's%20deforestation%20average.

[3] E.N. Chidumayo, D.J. Gumbo, The environmental impacts of charcoal production in tropical ecosystems of the world: A synthesis, Energy for Sustainable Development 17 (2013) 86–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2012.07.004.

[4] http://www.fao.org/3/ca7967en/ca7967en.pdf.

[5] https://mediamanager.sei.org/documents/Publications/Climate/market_barriers_clean_cooking_fuels_21april.pdf.

[6] R.D. Pereira, A.C. Badino, A.J.G. Cruz, Assessing the performance of industrial ethanol fermentation unit using neural networks, Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, 43 (2018) 175-180. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-64235-6.50032-2.

[7] High Level APET Report, Micro-Grids empowering communities and enabling transformation in Africa.

[8] ttps://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22521/Clean0and0impr000a0landscape0report.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[9] Accelerating green energy transition in Africa through regional integration, Policy Briefings, Energy, Natural Resources, https://saiia.org.za/research/accelerating-green-energy-transition-in-africa-through-regional-integration/.

[10] https://www.african-ctc.net/our-activities/component-1-%E2%80%93-knowledge-creation/research-projects/clean-cooking/.