Partner with Africa and Asia for effective climate action

By 2050, a quarter of the world’s population will be African, and their energy and development requirements are increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. It is increasingly clear that treating Africa and the developing world as genuine partners is a prerequisite for making effective action on climate change a reality.

In my experience, leaders of developing countries are as committed to combating climate change as any leader in the developed world. But they also face urgent domestic tasks such as industrializing their economies, transforming their agriculture sectors to feed rapidly growing populations, and providing jobs for their young people.

They want to pursue these goals in ways that are consistent with the world coming together to stop climate change. But they cannot be expected to do so at the expense of their own economic development. Moreover, the extent to which they can decarbonize or “leapfrog” the need for fossil fuels will be determined by both the decisions they take domestically and the support – financial, technological, and in terms of opening up global markets – they receive from developed countries.

What is required – and what I believe could come to be seen as the lasting legacy of COP27 – is a new consensus between developed countries and the developing world. At the core of that understanding must be recognition among richer countries – whose industrialization and economic growth are largely responsible for causing the climate crisis – that poorer countries’ development goals are non-negotiable. Their people’s aspirations are legitimate, and they deserve our support in pursuing them.

The first pillar of this new consensus involves richer countries working with countries in the developing world to formulate bespoke national energy-transition plans that are technically possible, financially viable, and politically acceptable. Such tailor-made energy solutions will enable low- and middle-income countries to pursue their higher development goals.

Second, we need both developed and developing countries to undertake the necessary reforms to get investment flowing into sound and sustainable energy projects. Developed countries should make good on their financial pledges, being upfront about the terms on which they are offered. For their part, developing countries need to develop stronger systems of governance to make sure any financing is well used, with the aim of creating a pipeline of investible projects.

Third, as with every other complex policy problem today, leaders around the world need to lean in to tech. Across all major economic sectors, technology has the potential to accelerate emissions reduction and provide developing countries with a path to sustainable economic development. Hydrogen, digital-optimization technologies, bio-fuels, carbon capture – all hold great promise. They need to be scaled up, and fast.

Much more also needs to be done to create the markets that can deliver these technologies at scale. For example, Africa boasts 60% of the world’s best solar resources but has only 1% of installed solar PV capacity. Comprehensive energy-transition plans can help to address this shocking discrepancy.

Building a new consensus will not be completed at a single COP summit. But vital, perhaps decisive, steps can be taken in Egypt this month, before the baton is handed to the United Arab Emirates, where world leaders will gather for COP28 in a year’s time.

- The writer is a former prime minister of the UK