Nairobi, 22 March 2007
- Mwai Kibaki, President of the Republic
of Kenya, Honourable Ministers, Distinguished
Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues,
Friends,
Thank you for allowing me to address this
important meeting on energy and the environment'important
because of the link to poverty eradication,
achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and sustainable development
of Africa's economy.
May I also commend the Government of Japan
for initiating and supporting the TICAD
since 1993 and for its pledge to significantly
increase Official Development Aid to Africa.
Fulfilling the promises of the past - from
the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 to the present
day - is one of the main routes to building
trust between the developing and developed
world.
Trust so urgently needed if we are to rise
to the challenges of our age - not least
climate change and completing the Doha trade
negotiations round.
Ladies ad Gentlemen,
We know the figures for Africa. If we exclude
South Africa and Egypt, no more 20 per cent
of the population - and in some countries
as little as five per cent - have direct
access to electricity. (in rural areas it
falls to as little as two percent).
An estimated 60 to 90 per cent of people
in sub-Saharan Africa rely on biomass with
all the impacts on human health and ecosystems
like forests.
But there are other possibilities for Africa's
energy future - some just emerging, others
within the Continent's grasp if we look
beyond the short term, if we dare to dream.
An hour's drive from Gigiri where meet
today is the Great Rift Valley where human-kind
emerged and whose beautiful and haunting
landscape is celebrated by visitors from
across the world.
It is also a source of huge energy potential
for East Africa right up to Djibouti.
For under the ground are, geologically-speaking,
young hot rock rocks able to generate steam
and thus turn electricity-generating turbines.
For more than 20 years, Kenya has harvested
some of this potential via a 45 MW geothermal
power station Olkaria.
If similar stations could be constructed
up the Rift and at other suitable hot rock
sites, considerable amounts of clean and
indigenous electricity could be generated--by
some estimates Africa has a geothermal potential
of up to 7,000 MW.
UNEP and the World Bank, through a $17
million grant from the Global Environment
Facility (GEF), are to underwrite the risks
of drilling for steam in order to over come
some of the basic technical and financial
hurdles.
It has not been an easy genesis for geothermal
in Africa, as those in the process know
but I think we are now getting there.
Geothermal is one possibility. Last year,
as part of the International Year of Deserts
and Desertification, UNEP issued its Global
Deserts Outlook.
Among the many facts and figures was a
fascinating one. According to some experts
an area 800 by 800 km of a desert such as
the Sahara could capture enough solar energy
to generate all the world's electricity
needs and more.
If one had suggested this a few decades,
even a few years ago, perhaps he or she
would have been packed off to the sanatorium
for a quiet retirement from the travails
of the real world.
But ladies and gentlemen, pause for a moment
and reflect on the recent striking growth
of renewable and clean energy technology.
According to Clean Edge, one market authority,
annual revenues from investments in wind
power, photovoltaics, biofuels and fuel
cells grew by close to 40 per cent between
2005 and 2006 climbing to $55 billion.
It is estimated that the market for these
four technologies could stand at over $225
billion by 2016.
Africa should and must be part of this development.
Africa is also rich in wind. Indeed not
far from here, in the Ngong Hills over which
many delegates will have flown as they landed
in Nairobi there is estimated to be some
50 MW of wind power across the Continent
significant amounts more.
And what about biofuels, the current hot
topic?
Biofuels-- from ethanol to oils-- could
play an important role in boosting farmers'
incomes, diversifying rural economies and
supplying air and climate-friendly fuels
for local and export markets.
By 2020, around a fifth of mineral oils
consumed world-wide could be substituted
by bio-fuels.
UNEP, in partnership with others and through
fora like the G8-initiated Global Bioenergy
Partnership, is looking to the norms and
standards that will hopefully guarantee
a global but also sustainable biofuels market.
Brazil, which is actively seeking bilateral
biofuel partnerships in Africa, is the pioneer.
It dared to dream.
Let me share something I learnt on a recent
visit to Brasilia (and I hope I do not offend
my colleagues here from the World Bank).
But when Brazil decided to invest in sugar
cane ethanol production the World Bank told
them it was a fool?s errand.
Yes, they spent $25 billion in subsidies.
But 30 years on Brazil has saved $50 billion
on the oil import bill.
At the same time Brazil has developed almost
an entire car fleet in part fueled by ethanol
alongside a national distribution network
and automotive Flex fuel technology that
is the envy of the world.
Brazil is now being actively courted by
countries like the United States and others
to increase ethanol exports in order to
meet new fuel and climate change targets.
So Brazil dared to dream and so perhaps
the idea of the Sahara becoming the power
house of the planet is not so far fetched
as it might seem.
Indeed some experts and entrepreneurs believe
the electricity generated in deserts like
the Sahara could be used not for export
but to assist in realizing the next generation
of clean fuel?namely a global hydrogen economy
Ladies and gentlemen, driving the growth
of renewable energy and cleaner energy generation
are the new realities of rising oil prices
and energy security.
And the overwhelming scientific consensus--
and now the political consensus-- that unless
we act on climate change we face an economically
and socially disruptive future.
The next report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change will be released
in Brussels on April 6.
It will underline the costs of inaction
in terms of the damage to natural assets
like forests to water supplies (incidentally
today is World Water Day?the theme is water
scarcity).
The internationally agreed solution is
the UN Framework Convention?s Kyoto Protocol.
Alongside energy security and concerns
about rising oil prices, it too is driving
interest in clean energy and renewables
via new and dynamic carbon markets unthinkable
only a few years ago.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for
example is likely to generate flows from
the North to the South of some $100 billion
over the coming years--funds for afforestation
and reforestation and for cleaner, greener,
energy projects.
Currently the lion?s share of such projects
is being secured by the more rapidly developing
economies of Brazil, China, India and South
Africa.
But UNEP and the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) mean to change this by making it
more inclusive.
At the last climate convention meeting,
held in this very campus at the end of 2006,
our two agencies established an initiative
to build CDM access capacity for developing
countries with a focus on Africa.
The initiative, with funding from countries
including Spain, is now active in several
countries in Africa and I would urge other
countries to come forward.
I would also urge a full, frank and forward-looking
engagement by Africa in the various dialogues
leading up to and including the climate
convention meeting in Bali in December.
The expanding opportunities for modern
energy investments, emerging as a result
of the carbon markets, are predicated on
deeper emission reductions post 2012 when
the Kyoto Protocol expires.
The European Union has announced a 20 per
cent greenhouse reduction by 2020 and a
30 per cent cut if others follow.
The G8+5 environment ministers meeting in
Potsdam, Germany last week underlined the
momentum clearly at work in 2007 to realize
a future emission reductions regime.
But ladies and gentlemen, we are not there
yet - we still have some way to go to build
trust between the developed and developing
world so that we can move as one.
Africa, with so much to lose if climate
change is not addressed and so much to gain
if it is, can and must be part of the solution
for a fair and equitable post 2012 landscape.
Africa must find its voice over the coming
crucial months and articulate not only the
threats it faces from unbridled climate
change and the urgency to act on both mitigation
and adaptation.
But a voice that spells out Africa's important
role in assisting developed and industrialized
countries meet deeper emission reductions
by providing a platform upon which investments
in modern 21st century energy generation
- both centralized and decentralized - can
be made.
Thank you.
+ More
Message by UNEP Executive Director for
World Water Day 2007 Theme - Water Scarcity
22 March - Water scarcity is both a natural
and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough
freshwater on the planet for six billion
people but it is shared unevenly and too
much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably
managed.
The reality of climate change compels the
world to pay even greater attention to water
scarcity given the predicted variability
and more extreme weather events likely over
the coming years and decades.
The text book planning of a dam on the
basis of a one in 100 flow is becoming a
hydrological lottery of receding certainty.
Glaciers, water stores and water sources
for millions of people alongside wildlife
and economically productive ecosystems,
are melting three times faster than in the
1980s and could disappear in the decades
to come.
A Brazilian study indicates that temperatures
in the Amazon could rise as high as 8 degrees
C dramatically altering the flows of one
of the world's most important freshwater
systems. So if we want to avoid "Water
Scarcity" as the permanent theme for
the 21st century, a big part of the solution
is cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 60
to 80 per cent.
Fortunately, World Water Day 2007 comes
in a year of unprecedented momentum on climate
change both scientifically and politically.
Let us hope that the tide of political opinion
is genuinely changing in favour of a meaningful,
fair and equitable emissions-reduction regime
for when the Kyoto Protocol treaty expires
in five short-years time.
Even without climate change addressing
water scarcity remains an issue in need
of resolution. Environmental degradation,
from deforestation to the draining of wetlands
is aggravating scarcity as are inefficient
forms of irrigation, over-exploitation of
underground aquifers and pollution to rivers,
lakes and streams.
UNEP's last Governing Council adopted a
new water policy and strategy for the organization.
We, in partnership with the UN system and
others, are fully committed to its implementation
which centers on improved, sustainable management.
Solutions do not always need to be large-scale
or require deep, fathomless pockets' take
rainwater harvesting. There is, mathematically,
enough rain falling on Africa to more than
supply 13 billion people. It is a similar
story across large parts of the globe including
Asia and Latin America.
Reducing water scarcity by, for example,
rainwater harvesting has multiple benefits.
A Maasai community in Kenya is now storing
over half a million litres. It is not only
a buffer against drought. Small kitchen
gardens and wood lots have also sprouted
contributing to food, energy security, overcoming
poverty and the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals.
