What the Pope might teach us about Uganda's energy future

By Gerald Tenywa

When Pope Francis lands in Uganda, he will alight in a land that like many developing countries faces a choice between two possible models of development: one driven principally by renewable energy, or one pulled by the temptations of fossil fuels: oil and gas. We believe it is worth considering these two directions in the light of the Pope’s recent messages on faith, the environment, climate change and development, outlined in his second encyclical letter to the faithful, Laudato si’.

Laudato si’ is a remarkable document. Pope Francis invites us to stop viewing ‘other living beings as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination’ and recognise creation as a ‘kind of universal family’. He contemplates the earth as a living entity, and compares its over-exploitation with the exploitation of the poor: ‘This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail”’. The Pope quotes Bolivian bishops: ‘Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest’.

Uganda’s Vision 2040 aims to transform Uganda into a middle-income country, and, recognising the considerable challenge of climate change, by doing so with an emphasis on renewable energy. To the extent that Vision 2o40 would help secure the wellbeing and dignity of our poorest people, it is an admirable goal, and one that should be supported by whatever government leads the country after February’s elections.

The Vision 2040 objective has been supported by the GET feed-in tariff programme to fast-track small-scale renewable energy projects, and has led to Uganda being ranked amongst the top 10 developing countries for policies favourable to cleaner energy investment. Unfortunately, some policy moves, such as the dropping of the feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaic energy in 2012, have not always reflected this commitment.

Pope Francis has cautioned us about the dangers of the conventional economic idea that any kind of economic growth is good:  ‘...The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit.’

One virtue of the shift to renewable energy is that it will encourage a more sustainable mode of economic thinking. Oil and gas reserves may create short-term booms, but these can soon collapse as many US communities are now discovering as the shale gas industry in that country retreats in the face of lower oil prices.

Floods in Katakwi district

Renewable energy, on the other hand, has implicit security of supply; it is not a cause of resource conflicts; and because renewable energy sources are widely distributed, it can be a catalyst for regional development and economic democracy, especially when coupled with forms of community ownership.
 
The potential for creating community energy companies is one of the most exciting aspects of the cleaner energy revolution, as it allows communities to directly control and benefit from the energy technology on which they depend. In the UK there are a few dozen  community energy cooperatives, but over a thousand  in Germany. By 2012, German community energy associations had a total installed capacity of 25GW – 25 times Uganda’s current installed capacity. As Francis observes, local people ‘are able to instil a greater sense of responsibility, a strong sense of community, a readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land.’

In contrast, what community benefits do oil companies bring? Far fewer jobs, international experience tells us, and all too often, the threat of loss of land.

Of course, one formidable obstacle to the popularisation of off-grid solar power for functions such as lighting and charging cellphones has long been that although solar energy is cheaper than kerosene in the medium and long-term, the up-front cost of a solar lantern or cellphone charger is prohibitive for many people. (This is not just a problem for Africans – appropriate financial solutions such as the solar leasing provided by Solar City are also a vital component of the shift to rooftop solar in the United States.)

Happily, innovative companies like Angaza Design and Azuri Technologies are now working to create pay-as-you-go solar products that quite quickly allow their customers to pay off their new solar home devices. This offers a great opportunity for many people who are dependent on kerosene for lighting and who are effectively paying far, far more for that lighting than do those with access to electricity, in a painful demonstration of the fact that it can be very expensive to be poor. There is no question that solar energy is already the cheapest form of energy for a great many Africans – the only question is access.

Of course, if we consider how developed countries have secured their wealth through the use of fossil fuels, oil and gas development may seem the obvious route to go for Uganda too. But it is a path that in fact brings with it substantial risks at a variety of levels: contributing to climate change, local air and water pollution that usually affects poor people the most.

There are also governance risks: the ‘resource curse’ of corruption, of which Francis warns, often afflicts resource-intensive economies. There are also economic risks: as much of the rest of the world is fast shifting to renewable energy, countries that over-commit themselves to fossil fuels risk being left behind technologically.
In the simplest of moral terms – because it risks accelerating the enormous dangers of climate change – development based on fossil fuels may just be wrong. For Ugandans, these dangers are already manifesting in our experience of hitherto unknown droughts, floods, landslides and malaria. And they are costing us a great deal of money. In the years 2007-8, for example, government informs us that climate change damages were equivalent to 4.4% of the national budget. The average annual cost of climate change over the next 40 years could be close to 10% of GDP.


Contemplating this problem, Pope Francis is explicit about the solutions: ‘There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.’

It is tempting to think that the development path pursued by the West is one that all should emulate – but that model comes with considerable costs, all too often measured in the exploitation of human beings and the destruction of the stable natural world on which we all depend: ‘We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals.’

Practically, if climate change is to be kept to manageable levels, more than 80% of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves must remain unburnt and underground, according to the UK-based investment research experts at Carbon Tracker. Current investment in fossil fuels risks creating so-called ‘stranded assets’. In other words, investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in Uganda may prove to be wasted if future international agreements to limit global warming greatly restricts the burning of fossil fuels.

Even without considering the risk of stranded assets, though, it is worth asking which development path offers the quickest and least expensive potential benefits for the more than 80% of Ugandans currently without access to electricity. The fact is that in today’s world, it is often those countries – such as Germany, China and, closer to home, Ethiopia, that are most energetically pursuing the development of renewable energy that also have the strongest economies. In this context, Uganda’s ambition to have a total 3,200 MW of renewable electricity generation capacity by 2030, up from 729 MW in 2013, looks all too modest.

It is worth considering at some length the growing evidence that the world is on the cusp of a fundamental energy revolution away from fossil fuels and in favour of renewable energy.

Consider that in 2014, renewables contributed 60% of new power generation worldwide. Also, that the International Energy Agency expects that wind, solar, and hydropower will be contributing close to two-thirds of new net power capacity brought online worldwide before 2020. An international campaign led by students at universities across the US stigmatising investments in oil, gas and coal and calling for divestment from fossil fuels has seen investment funds valued at a total of $2.6 trillion committing to ditching their interests in fossil fuels. Whether driven by ethics or self-interest or both, leading investors are turning away from fossil fuels.

Perhaps most importantly for the question of how to choose an energy path for Uganda, the Pope insists that it is wrong to think ‘ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without need for ethical consideration’.

Reading Laudato si’ has inspired us to urge that Vision 2040 should be renewed with a determination to make Uganda a 100% renewable energy country by 2050. To the extent that we may need to make use of fossil fuels along the way, we should be resolute in channelling those revenues into the development of renewable energy, landscape restoration, and sustainable agriculture for the benefit of all Ugandans, present and future.

Of course, the Pope’s ecological vision goes far beyond the need to swap fossil fuels for solar panels and wind turbines. It is worthy of study by anyone concerned with humanity’s future. Even if humanity’s collective measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions succeed in averting the worst of climate change, we will still be vulnerable to many of the effects from past emissions.

This demands measures for adaptation, and Pope Francis teaches us that adaptation is not just about the kinds of techniques that we apply to our agriculture and the strength we engineer into our infrastructure, though these are of course vital. Adaptation, in his vision, is also about the strength of society: about challenging individual selfishness, about education, about limiting careless consumerism, about respect for diversity, about measures for distributive justice, about taking seriously the needs of future generations, about building social solidarity:

‘If everything is related, then the health of a society’s institutions has consequences for the environment and the quality of human life.’ In the end, then, as we would expect, the Pope calls us not just to treasure the environment, but to see the environment as a reflection of our own inner lives, and to seek security, inner and outer, by cultivating our own hearts.

Additional reporting by  Isaac Kabongo, the executive director of Ecological Christian Organisation and David Le Page, an environmental journalist in Cape Town.