Too dirty to fund and too poor to leap: Africa’s decarbonisation dilemma
Africa is under pressure to grow cleanly, but can it industrialise without the resources others had?
Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, economic growth has been coupled with a steady increase in carbon emissions. Developed countries like the UK, Germany and the US grew their economies by relying on coal and oil, and later by incorporating natural gas. As these countries transitioned to high-income economies, marked by rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and wealth accumulation, their energy demands and carbon footprints surged. This carbon-intensive growth trajectory is widely acknowledged today as the leading driver of the current climate crisis.
Now, Africa - despite contributing only around 4-5% of global emissions - is expected to do something no other region has ever done before: lift half a billion people out of poverty, provide energy access to the 640 million citizens, and industrialise and develop rapidly and at a scale, all without relying on the very resources that powered the prosperity of today’s wealthy nations. These expectations are embedded in conditional donor grants, climate agreements, and shifting ‘green’ investment mandates. The mountain to climb is enormous! Not because Africa is the biggest polluter, but because it is expected to grow cleanly from the onset, without the capital, infrastructure or emissions space that others once had.
This imbalance is starkly evident in historical emissions data (Figure 1). High-income countries were responsible for the bulk of global fossil fuel emissions throughout the 20th century, peaking at over 4 billion tons annually by the 2000s. Emissions from low-income countries (including most of Africa) have remained negligible. Today, emissions growth is being driven by upper-middle-income economies like China, which arguably is following the very example set by those who trod the path before them.
From 1980 to 2020, China saw its GDP grow 35-fold and emissions surge from 0.4 to 3 billion tons. This fossil-fuel-powered industrialisation lifted 800 million people out of poverty but also expanded the country's carbon footprint enormously (Figure 2). The UK, US, France and Germany followed the exact same path decades earlier, using the same fossil fuels to propel their economies to high-income status. Their economic growth ingrained the very carbon-heavy development model they are now working and funding to reform. Today, these high-income countries are flattening the curve and even decoupling their economies from carbon emissions using the financial and institutional capital accumulated over centuries to invest in clean energy transitions.
In contrast, Africa is expected to leapfrog over this trend and jump straight to low-carbon development without the infrastructure, capital or policy space enjoyed by those who created this mess. Africa and China have similar population sizes, yet China’s economy and carbon footprint are roughly 6 times that of Africa, while Africa suffers from severe energy poverty. While transitioning directly to clean energy is desirable and necessary, it is made profoundly difficult by Africa’s outdated power infrastructure and widespread deficits. In most countries, the basic building blocks of a modern energy system - from reliable grids to storage and transmission - are still missing or underdeveloped. Africa must grow and emissions will inevitably rise as a result.
Africa is being asked to do what no region has ever done before: grow and industrialise without carbon
This is exactly why the African Common Position on Climate Change (ACP) was created and adopted by the African Union and the African Group of Negotiators in 2023. It is one of the few political instruments that Africa has negotiated collectively. It represents a unified stance across the continent to assert Africa’s development rights in the global climate agenda. This position affirms Africa's right to development and energy access using a balanced energy mix, including the use of renewables and non-renewables. It calls for fairness in global mitigation expectations, increased grant-based climate finance and access to low-carbon technologies. It is not a plea for exemption, but a pragmatic demand for equity grounded in emission facts. The ACP can serve as a key bargaining platform for global carbon finance reform and technology transfer, yet it requires greater political backing and visibility beyond COP summits.
Even under the most optimistic low-carbon scenarios, Africa’s emissions are projected to double over the next two decades. This is not a sign of policy failure, but a reflection of economic necessity. To expect Africa to defy this pattern is neither fair nor realistic. This context must shape global expectations. The call for Africa to leapfrog is understandable and indeed desirable, and needed, but unprecedented. It demands technological and financial support on a scale never seen before, and current climate finance frameworks are not delivering.
While the ambition to decouple economic growth from emissions is justified, it is a challenge in early-stage, low-capacity economies. Most African states, unlike high-income countries, lack the capital reserves, robust institutions and technological infrastructure which was accessible to others in their transition. Deep structural transformation and external support will be required to replicate these outcomes.
The good news is that decoupling (where economies grow while emissions fall) is not a pipe dream. It has been proven possible, though largely through the wealth, infrastructure and policy space of high-income countries. Around 49 countries have demonstrated this, mostly in Europe and high-income economies.
The United Kingdom is a case in point (Figure 3). Since 1990, its economy has expanded by over 70%, while its emissions have dropped by 42%. This shift was not accidental. It came through sustained policies: phasing out coal, instituting a carbon price and investing heavily in offshore wind and other renewables. Clean growth became a cornerstone of the UK’s industrial strategy.
Sweden has followed a similarly intentional path. It introduced one of the world’s earliest and most robust carbon taxes in the 1990s and has steadily scaled up its renewable energy capacity. As a result, Sweden was able to reduce emissions by approximately 8% during the 2000s, all while continuing to grow its economy. Key drivers included fuel taxes, targeted public investments and dynamic private sector innovation.
France leveraged technology and strong policy frameworks to achieve decoupling. Its early and aggressive investments in nuclear energy (now responsible for roughly 70% of the country’s electricity generation) have played a foundational role. Combined with ambitious energy efficiency measures, this strategy has enabled France to sustain economic growth while maintaining one of the lowest carbon economies in Europe.
Germany’s energy transition is another example. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the country significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining strong economic growth. This progress was driven by policies that promoted wind and solar power, phased out nuclear energy and improved energy efficiency. However, the intermittent nature of renewables created challenges for a consistent electricity supply. As a result, Germany has increasingly relied on cross-border electricity imports, particularly from France, whose stable nuclear-powered grid has helped meet German demand during periods of low renewable output. This highlights another key feature of the European energy transition: alongside significant funding, regional interdependence is key as countries leverage each other’s strengths to maintain grid reliability while decarbonising.
What the leading decoupled countries have in common (aside from wealthy economies and strong regional energy dependencies) is that they invested in context-specific technologies: France through its energy-dense nuclear investments, the UK through its offshore wind, and Sweden through its mix of hydropower and nuclear. These countries tailored their transitions to their available resources, all while utilising natural gas as the cornerstone of the transition. In each decoupled economy, policy played a decisive role. Strategic public investment, trained and skilled negotiators and strong institutions laid the groundwork for successful transitions. These countries all adopted a form of carbon pricing mechanisms, phased out coal by incentivising early adoption of clean technologies and made substantial upfront investments in grid infrastructure. Importantly, they backed these efforts with clear, long-term regulatory frameworks and investor guarantees, which proved essential to unlocking private capital and building trust in the transition.
On the African continent, South Africa and Morocco stand out as early examples of countries entering their decoupling phase. South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), underpinned by US$8.5 billion in concessional funding, marks one of the first national transitions backed by both international and domestic planning. Morocco similarly has demonstrated the power of early public investment combined with international diplomacy. It has developed one of the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities (which have been operational for 9 years) and significantly expanded its wind, solar and hydro capacity over more than a decade already. This progress has been underpinned by sustained public finance, robust policy direction and strategic diplomatic engagement.
Unlike early decouplers, Africa begins its journey with limited electrification, sparse grids, lacking infrastructure, weak industrial bases and constrained institutional capacity. While renewables are increasingly cost-effective and are being deployed across the continent at a record pace, they alone cannot meet Africa’s baseload energy needs or power the large-scale industrialisation needed to lift half a billion people out of poverty. Higher-density energy sources, such as natural gas and, where feasible, nuclear, must form part of the energy mix if Africa is to close its energy poverty gap and enable inclusive economic growth.
Renewables alone cannot meet Africa’s baseload energy needs or power the necessary large-scale industrialisation
Leapfrogging to a low-carbon future without adequate capital or enabling global policy frameworks is unrealistic. Foreign investment remains highly volatile, and nearly two-thirds of climate-related official development assistance (ODA) to Africa in 2022 came in the form of concessional loans, not grants, adding to the continent’s rising debt burden. A global carbon tax has been proposed as a funding mechanism, but in the current geopolitical climate, a binding global effort is unlikely. At minimum, the G20 should implement a carbon price floor targeted at the world’s highest emitters, with a share directed to low-income, low-emission, energy-poor countries.
A pragmatic African decoupled pathway demands systemic reform of the global financial architecture. Climate finance must shift from debt-based loans to unconditional grants for low-income countries, as evidence shows that concessional financing accelerates implementation and reduces fiscal strain.
The idea of scaling up South Africa’s JETP model across the continent has already been raised, highlighting the need for a continent-scale investment platform to coordinate and de-risk capital flows. But Africa must also lead from within. No investor will commit to fragile, unstable environments. Governance reform, regulatory clarity and political stability are non-negotiable for building an investable continent. None of this is possible without decoupling climate finance from debt. Africa did the least to cause the climate crisis. Yet, it is expected to pay the most for solving it. Without reforming global finance, structural external support and strategic continental leadership, the energy transition will weaken and Africa will face a stark choice: either remain locked in energy poverty for decades to come, or repeat the fossil-fuel-intensive path that created the climate crisis in the first place.
Image: geralt/Pixabay
