Top Reads: Competing biases, fossil fuels and renewables

The African Energy Chamber boss NJ Ayuk was quoted in Upstream on Thurs saying that: “the call to leave fossil fuels in the ground is a Western narrative and fails to factor in the needs of low-income Africans who would gain from a strategic approach to oil and gas operations, job creation and local enterprise opportunities” [1]. And a couple of weeks prior, Ghana’s Petroleum Minister John Peter Amewu told the IEA Ministerial Roundtable that Africa cannot industrialise on renewables alone[2]. In describing the Ghanaian government’s strategic mindset, Amewu could have gone even further: renewables feature[3] but value-added job creation (i.e. industrialisation) is the New Patriotic Party’s preeminent objective, and this plan is premised in large part on an expansion in fossil fuel production, at least in absolute terms. He might also have said that Ghana intends to expand its oil and gas exports, except that external dynamics (read COVID-19) have pushed those plans into limbo. In fact, in his mid-year budget statement, passed this week, Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta, made it plain that recent developments “could weaken the critical role of the oil and gas sector in propelling economic growth”. Meanwhile, in the UK, which is an important partner for Ghana’s oil and gas operations, the Prime Minister is initiating a review of its financial support for hydrocarbon projects.   

[1] https://www.upstreamonline.com/politics/opinion-africa-left-to-bear-carbon-burden/2-1-849036?utm_source=emailsharing

[2] We’ve heard similar from senior cadres in the energy ministry justifying the oft-cited 10% renewable energy goal.

[3] https://www.songhaiadvisory.com/blog/2019/10/30/ghanas-energy-crisis-whats-the-role-for-renewable-energy

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