African countries are skipping coal and going straight to renewables
Africa’s developing economies have a choice to make between using coal or renewable energy.
For many developed countries, there was a recognisable progression in how they generated energy at different phases of development, with a stage of reliance on coal-burning as a seemingly inevitable first step towards a more advanced economy.
But for a developing country in today’s world, there are more options when it comes to choosing how to improve their energy infrastructure. In some cases, it’s possible for a developing economy to “leapfrog” over coal dependence entirely, moving instead to renewables.
That’s great news not just for the people of those countries, who will be spared the health risks associated with burning fossil fuels, but also the world — because as Africa starts to boom, as many predict, it could be a disaster in terms of worsening climate change.
CIFOR