Africa must invest in renewable energy

Abu Dhabi: African governments should consider investing in renewable energies like wind, solar and hydro power to help feed the continent's growing energy demands and combat threats of climate change, the head of a new international energy agency said on Friday.

Adnan Ameen also told nearly 30 African energy and foreign affairs ministers at the start of a two-day meeting that the key to ramping up renewable energy deployment was for countries to develop the regulatory framework needed to convince institutional investors it's safe to put their money into these cutting edge technologies.

"If Africa continues to grow at pace it is growing and intensifies that growth and uses only carbon-emitting forms of energy, it will exponentially change the picture on climate change and make it much worse," said Ameen, a Kenyan who is director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

"We need right now to start making the kinds of investment that will lead Africa on a very different path," he said.

Catastrophe

There is a global push to reduce dependence on traditional forms of energy like oil and coal as part of efforts to combat global warming and keep temperatures from rising too far above preindustrial-era levels, which could trigger catastrophic climate impacts.

Until now, African has largely been left on the sidelines of discussions about climate change, mostly because its poor nations only use 5 per cent of the world's energy.