it is nearly impossible to turn the head of a bleating westerner towards this very real and precise issue you’ve written about here. thank you for the elucidation.
Your point about the immorality of net-zero commitments cutting off financing for energy development in Africa needs to be heard by more people. Banks withdrawing from African projects while continuing to fund similar ones elsewhere exposes the inherent hypocrisy of advocates. And the consequences are not theoretical—intermittent power, hospitals without reliable electricity, and millions forced to cook with wood and charcoal. This is not an abstraction; people are dying as a result. That reality needs to be confronted plainly.
If I could add one clarification to build on your argument: these same policy dynamics are having destructive effects in Western economies too.
For example, the UK now has some of the highest energy costs in the world, driven by these same net-zero policies. High energy costs—one of the most critical inputs for manufacturing—combined with environmental regulations and other legal barriers have hollowed out much of its industrial base. And the UK is not alone; we see this same pattern across countries all over the world.
Even the United States is not immune. Over the same period that these policy pressures intensified, American manufacturing entered a steep decline as production steadily moved overseas. Between 1997 and 2022, more than 70,000 manufacturing plants shut down in America—an average of roughly eight factories every single day.
Across much of Europe and North America, rising costs from these policies and regulatory burdens have pushed production elsewhere—often to China, where standards are less stringent and enforcement is lax. The result has been not the elimination of emissions—just shifting them out of sight.
So the same framework that is constraining Africa’s development is also eroding industrial capacity across all countries that have implemented them. These policies are harmful wherever they are tried—but the consequences are far more immediate and severe in Africa, where energy access is still foundational to basic living standards, not just economic growth.
White liberals know what is best for everyone...NOT. The best advice for Africa is to do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they propose. They muck up everything
As usual you hit the nail on the head perfectly. There is some form of obscene virtue-signaling by the energy gluttonous who refuse to share scraps off the table with the energy impoverished. The majority of governments acting like this are left of centre, and yet are indulging in energy harm to some of the world's poorest and most deprived citizens. The smugness of the "consensus" around Net Zero by the modernruling Euro centrist left is as solid as a Giza pyramid. They will not listen and they do not care. We are in the partadox that former colonial powers did more for African energy (Owen Falls, Cabora Bassa, Lake Kariba and more, than modern "progressive" successors .....- oh the irony!
There is a caution here - which is that Africa is the logical place to build _solar_ energy infrastructure. I think there is a unique scale - village to small town - that would bypass the inefficiency and corruption of state electricity companies, but I have no idea whether suitable technology is being developed. Maybe in South Africa, where the law now permits local generation.
Beyond that, when I'm in an idealistic mood I dream of Europe buying most of its electricity from solar farms all across Africa.
Solar energy only works at about 15%~25% efficiency worldwide on average. i.e. if your solar plant has a rated output of 1000Watts per day realistically you will achieve 114 watts. Of course this could be higher in somewhere like the Sahel but won't go ever much over 25% efficiency. And then because solar is intermittent, including not just night but clouds, rain and dust which all effect it, the equivalent back-up plant running on fossil fuels has to be built in parallel.
Not only that early morning solar and afternoon solar does not produce the same amount of energy. So you have an intermittent source of energy that also fluctuates, just like wind power-- a disaster for all but small village/town or remote location energy. Lots of scope for that in Africa -- as far as feeding Europe with solar, it cannot and will not happen.
Unfortunately a lot of solar currenty gets deployed in high latitudes (e.g. United Kingdom) where sunshine is weak & intermittent. I think that is dragging the averages down; the tropics are a much more favourable location. Tropical weather patterns are more predictable (opinion based on living in the topics/subtropical but I've not looked for hard data) and an east-west spread of sites across the continent could address intermittency and morning/evening effects. And back-up power should be nuclear...
it is nearly impossible to turn the head of a bleating westerner towards this very real and precise issue you’ve written about here. thank you for the elucidation.
Thank you for another excellent article!
Your point about the immorality of net-zero commitments cutting off financing for energy development in Africa needs to be heard by more people. Banks withdrawing from African projects while continuing to fund similar ones elsewhere exposes the inherent hypocrisy of advocates. And the consequences are not theoretical—intermittent power, hospitals without reliable electricity, and millions forced to cook with wood and charcoal. This is not an abstraction; people are dying as a result. That reality needs to be confronted plainly.
If I could add one clarification to build on your argument: these same policy dynamics are having destructive effects in Western economies too.
For example, the UK now has some of the highest energy costs in the world, driven by these same net-zero policies. High energy costs—one of the most critical inputs for manufacturing—combined with environmental regulations and other legal barriers have hollowed out much of its industrial base. And the UK is not alone; we see this same pattern across countries all over the world.
Even the United States is not immune. Over the same period that these policy pressures intensified, American manufacturing entered a steep decline as production steadily moved overseas. Between 1997 and 2022, more than 70,000 manufacturing plants shut down in America—an average of roughly eight factories every single day.
Across much of Europe and North America, rising costs from these policies and regulatory burdens have pushed production elsewhere—often to China, where standards are less stringent and enforcement is lax. The result has been not the elimination of emissions—just shifting them out of sight.
So the same framework that is constraining Africa’s development is also eroding industrial capacity across all countries that have implemented them. These policies are harmful wherever they are tried—but the consequences are far more immediate and severe in Africa, where energy access is still foundational to basic living standards, not just economic growth.
Many people in developed countries do not believe in net zero; but, like the Greengrocer .... they drift along with the lie.
Yes! Every time someone decides that the government needs to control one more aspect of your life, the more people suffer.
I appreciate your articles. I support the work you are doing. Thank you! 😊🙏
Nice work!
White liberals know what is best for everyone...NOT. The best advice for Africa is to do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they propose. They muck up everything
One of the most important articles in the current climate. Thank you!
As usual you hit the nail on the head perfectly. There is some form of obscene virtue-signaling by the energy gluttonous who refuse to share scraps off the table with the energy impoverished. The majority of governments acting like this are left of centre, and yet are indulging in energy harm to some of the world's poorest and most deprived citizens. The smugness of the "consensus" around Net Zero by the modernruling Euro centrist left is as solid as a Giza pyramid. They will not listen and they do not care. We are in the partadox that former colonial powers did more for African energy (Owen Falls, Cabora Bassa, Lake Kariba and more, than modern "progressive" successors .....- oh the irony!
There is a caution here - which is that Africa is the logical place to build _solar_ energy infrastructure. I think there is a unique scale - village to small town - that would bypass the inefficiency and corruption of state electricity companies, but I have no idea whether suitable technology is being developed. Maybe in South Africa, where the law now permits local generation.
Beyond that, when I'm in an idealistic mood I dream of Europe buying most of its electricity from solar farms all across Africa.
Solar energy only works at about 15%~25% efficiency worldwide on average. i.e. if your solar plant has a rated output of 1000Watts per day realistically you will achieve 114 watts. Of course this could be higher in somewhere like the Sahel but won't go ever much over 25% efficiency. And then because solar is intermittent, including not just night but clouds, rain and dust which all effect it, the equivalent back-up plant running on fossil fuels has to be built in parallel.
Not only that early morning solar and afternoon solar does not produce the same amount of energy. So you have an intermittent source of energy that also fluctuates, just like wind power-- a disaster for all but small village/town or remote location energy. Lots of scope for that in Africa -- as far as feeding Europe with solar, it cannot and will not happen.
Unfortunately a lot of solar currenty gets deployed in high latitudes (e.g. United Kingdom) where sunshine is weak & intermittent. I think that is dragging the averages down; the tropics are a much more favourable location. Tropical weather patterns are more predictable (opinion based on living in the topics/subtropical but I've not looked for hard data) and an east-west spread of sites across the continent could address intermittency and morning/evening effects. And back-up power should be nuclear...
But yes it is an idealistic dream!
Since the transmission lines would have to go through some of the most hostile, dysfunctional countries in the world, it won’t happen.