At the recent global COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the EU reportedly drew a line in the desert sands.
The world’s most influential body politic threatened to walk out of the Egypt talks in frustration over weak climate commitments, including tougher language on phasing out fossil fuels such as coal.
On paper, the EU’s approach seems to set it on a collision course with a fossil fuel-rich country such as Botswana, whose billions of tonnes in coal and trillions of cubic feet in natural gas, have barely been developed.
Batswana, like other Africans, feel hard done by the pace of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables that the developed world is demanding. Botswana is a small carbon emissions producer in a continent which pollutes the world the least. Many Africans and their politicians argue that the resources the continent is being asked to leave in the ground could help it catch up with its global peers.
Meanwhile the price to be paid for marching to the pace of the EU and other developed regions, is unemployment, under-development and social upheaval.
The EU’s new Ambassador to Botswana and SADC, Petra Pereyra says she appreciates the sensitive dynamics involved in the continent’s approach to the green energy transition. “Something that’s hugely important for the EU and for COP27 was precisely this climate justice,” she says, speaking with Mmegi as part of her first local media interactions.
“There’s no fighting climate change without climate justice and from the EU perspective it was absolutely clear that these questions needed to be addressed at COP27.
“Whether they were fully addressed to the extent we hoped for, that’s a different matter.”
While sensitivities around the pace of the change exist across Africa, for Botswana, however, the green transition is not an “either or” scenario. Government has not closed the door on new privately owned fossil fuel operations, given a 2050 deadline agreed to previously at the United Nations, but it has also committed to reducing carbon emissions by, amongst others, moving most of the country’s future energy needs to renewable.
Nearly all of the government-backed energy generation projects currently being developed or planned for the medium to long-term are renewable and include photovoltaic and concentrated solar, as well as wind.
For Pereyra, Botswana, which she describes as “special” in Africa for its historical stability, development and democracy, represents an opportunity for the EU to showcase a successful partnership in the green energy transition.
The EU’s recently launched Multi-Annual Indicative Programme (MIP) indicates that of the 16 million euros (P213 million) it plans to spend in Botswana between 2021 and 2024 on various projects, priority number one is “green transformation”. The MIP, the EU’s primary financial framework for partner countries, has set aside 7.5 million euros or 47% of the total funds, for projects that “promote and increase access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy through the expansion of renewable energy generation”.
The full MIP runs from 2021 to 2027, with an initial funding period up to 2024 when a mid-term review is due.
For the EU, Botswana is not only a model country in Africa in terms of democracy, but its abundant renewable resources such as solar irradiation and track history of natural resources management, make it an ideal showpiece for the green transition. “There’s huge potential for solar energy in this country, massive potential, even to export into the region where there’s a huge need,” Pereyra stresses.
“Botswana has all it takes to become the powerhouse of this region with solar energy.
“There’s huge potential there and we hope to leverage that potential and harness for the long term benefit of the country and the region.”
She adds: “At the EU, Botswana is seen as the model or example of how to manage your natural resources in a way that’s not just beneficial for a small elite, but the country and its development.
“Our full commitment is here and the green transformation is fully in line with our priorities and commitments and our objectives.
“This is also something that we hope to achieve globally, but it’s also hugely important for Botswana.
“Botswana has what it takes to make it a reality.”
How the EU views countries it partners with is a critical but often under-stated factor. The €16 million in the MIP are a grant funded by European taxpayers. When the EU speaks about committing any sum of money, its representatives ultimately have to be ready to justify both projects, amounts and beneficiaries to taxpayers.
Botswana may be the model the EU can use to showcase green energy transition, but neighbouring South Africa has become Africa’s posterchild for the difficulties of energy transformation.
In the region, South Africa and Botswana are the most dependent on fossil fuels, but unlike its larger neighbour, Botswana’s energy transition is far less complex.
South Africa’s coal sector, with about 90,000 workers and these mainly from its historically disadvantaged black population, is concerned about the wide-scale loss of these semi-skilled jobs. Renewable energy projects directly employ far less people during operation, while the wholesale adoption of new, imported technologies could cause social upheaval and worsen a long running jobs crisis.
Botswana’s challenges are similar but smaller in scale. Even more importantly, they do not include apartheid legacy issues in employment and skills development that are complicating the energy transition in South Africa.
For the EU, Botswana has an opportunity to replicate the successes of former Eastern bloc states in transforming their economies after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
“Look at what happened in some of the European countries that joined the EU more recently, those who were part of the Soviet Union,” says Pereyra.
“We see that they have done a huge transition.
“They have made a huge leap from very modest economic development to huge economic development with the help of digital transformation.
“It created jobs we didn’t know existed.
“With solar, it’s free, doesn’t cost anything.
“It’s a matter of harnessing it and making it create jobs we don’t even know exist.”
According to the Ambassador, with the funds set aside, the EU will work with government and the private sector, including investment partners for any identified projects in the green transformation. The EU will also look to engage funding institutions such as the European Investment Bank to help along Botswana’s transition.
Pereyra says the latest engagement with Botswana under the MIP indicates the evolving nature of the two parties’ relationship over the years.
“Initially we were there with development cooperation approach because the country was quite under-developed at the start of its history.
“But it has made this massive progress which is really impressive and EU has been supporting that.
“Now we want to step up the gear and take it to another level, from the more natural-resources based economy to a knowledge-based economy, which is also the ambition of the government.”
For Botswana, which has watched as the global limelight for green transition funding has focussed on South Africa, the EU could prove to be a valuable partner in realising the country’s lofty renewable energy plans.
