Green economy: Local economic development an opportunity to transform lives of hundreds of millions

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00:00Next, it's increasingly likely 2024 will be the hottest year on record in spite of July

00:06ending a 13-month streak of monthly temperature records.

00:11This coming from the EU's climate monitor this Thursday.

00:13The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month that it was the second warmest

00:18on record books going back to 1940, only slightly cooler than July 2023.

00:31Climate is a big issue of course and joining us from New York is Ashvin Dayal, Senior Vice

00:36President of the Rockefeller Foundation.

00:39The Green Power Gap and the Energy Hypocrisy your report just concluded highlights shortcomings

00:43in expectation and execution of policy and practice.

00:48Always it's the poorer countries who come off worse, isn't it?

00:50Can you give us a sense of the problem as you see it?

00:53Clearly, we've been talking about climate change on a broader basis, but you're homing

00:57in on energy, renewable energy and those who are winners and losers.

01:02Well, thank you and good afternoon, yes.

01:05I mean, when we think about the term sort of climate hypocrisy, you know, we're faced

01:09with a situation where in fact the people suffering the most from those heatwaves are

01:14living in energy poor countries who are least responsible for the climate impact that we

01:19have today.

01:20So our report really points out that we have two futures ahead of us.

01:24We either have a future in which these developing countries, and we've studied about 72 countries

01:29that are energy poor, they have development aspirations, they want to grow their economies

01:34and they're going to need to consume in most cases about 10 times the amount of electricity

01:39per capita than they are today.

01:41And the question is, will that growth in demand between now and 2050 happen with a renewable

01:47clean energy pathway or will it happen on the basis of fossil fuel development, which

01:52is very much the right of these countries if that's the path that is chosen because

01:56there isn't the financing and political support made available for the alternative path.

02:01And so the report really points out what a massive effort the world needs to pull together

02:06in order to help 72 countries actually deliver clean, abundant energy and lift hundreds of

02:13millions of people out of the situations of poverty or vulnerability and improve their

02:18economic future.

02:20Developing nations always look to the fact that the countries that we today call the

02:24West, it started with Britain, didn't it, in 1750.

02:27They all industrialized using fossil fuels and of course as they became more modern,

02:31more industrial, the pollution went up.

02:34Now these days, as you've just intimated, that if the developing countries will develop

02:38using the same process, it might be something that the world cannot actually take in terms

02:43of the climate change that will enforce.

02:46So what is the solution?

02:49Is it the technology exchange?

02:51Because the renewable energy processes are there, aren't they?

02:54Yes.

02:55And so you're right.

02:56It is technology exchange.

02:57It is financing.

02:58It is political will.

02:59And the point you make is absolutely right, Mark.

03:02We don't want 72 energy-poor countries to grow their economies on the back of fossil

03:07fuels the same way that the United Kingdom did during the Industrial Revolution.

03:12We simply can't as a planet sustain that.

03:14We will probably go not just beyond two degrees, but beyond a two and a half degree scenario

03:19if that happens.

03:20Because as I said, these countries are going to grow their demand.

03:23They are going to grow their economies.

03:25The irony is that if you look at the continent of Africa, it has 60 percent of the solar

03:30resources available to it, yet it only gets less than 1 percent of the investment into

03:35solar technologies.

03:36These are expensive technologies, even though the prices have come down.

03:40But the good news is the way we electrify communities has changed.

03:44We have many more decentralized or local energy solutions.

03:47It doesn't have to be these large coal-fired power plants generating through centralized

03:52grids.

03:53We have the technologies.

03:54We have the business models.

03:55But we need the financing and the technology transfer that needs to be made available to

04:01many of these countries, or we will indeed end up in a two and a half degree planet world.

04:06You made me just think of my friends in Botswana who I've just been speaking to, journalist

04:10friends, to get the latest quote from their 200 meter runner winning a gold medal.

04:15They're celebrating there.

04:17On other sides in Botswana, I was there a couple of years ago, they were celebrating

04:21putting in a water main into the south of the capital.

04:24It seems unthinkable that people don't get running water into their homes, but that was

04:29something they were celebrating doing, a major advancement.

04:31Botswana trying to get into also the idea of creating its own Silicon Valley type structure

04:37within its country, trying to sort of move on two, three leaps to create its own sort

04:43of post-industrial revolution and make things happen there.

04:46Is that something that has to come from within Africa or something that needs that sort of

04:50impetus from the West, shall we say?

04:53Well, I think it's a global effort that is needed.

04:56I mean, what Botswana is trying to do is actually what many countries can try to do, which is

05:00leapfrog and take advantage of these new digital technologies, renewable technologies, battery

05:06storage technologies.

05:08Think about the mobile phone revolution 20 years ago and how so many countries were able

05:12to transform communications as a result of not relying on traditional mainline infrastructure.

05:19So, you know, the prices have come down, but no country around the world has actually fully

05:22electrified itself without a significant amount of public sector finance.

05:26And you're dealing with countries that are already heavily indebted, that have had promises

05:31made around financing for renewables, are being expected to deliver commitments around

05:37net zero and their nationally determined contributions in terms of what they will do to reduce their

05:42emissions, but are not being backed up with the support that's needed.

05:46I mean, we're very encouraged by the recent announcement, for example, by the World Bank

05:50and the African Development Bank to increase their financing to electrify 300 million Africans

05:56over the next six years.

05:59It's a mammoth task, and we're sort of getting behind them to try and make that effort a

06:03reality.

06:04But we're going to need a lot more partnerships and commitments like that around the world.

06:07And the impacts on the ground are transformational.

06:10This doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

06:12I've personally traveled all over Africa and in South Asia and seen the transformation

06:17that clean energy can bring to a local community when farmers now have the ability to have

06:22cold storage on site so they can protect their produce rather than having to sell it at a

06:27lower price, where carpenters can move from manual appliances to mechanized tools and

06:32quadruple their productivity.

06:34This is local economic development.

06:35This is what the green economy, which is this sort of jargony term, actually means for people's

06:41lives.

06:42And we need a real opportunity for this to be the climate and development project of

06:47the next 10 years that can transform hundreds of millions of people's lives.

06:51Ashvin Dayal, thank you very much for telling us about this and flagging out to us the issues.

06:563.8 billion people across 72 countries with insufficient electricity to access modern

07:00opportunity and prosperity.

07:01We heard it from Ashvin and all about the possibilities of getting past that.

07:06And thank you, sir, for joining us.

07:07Ashvin Dayal of the Rockefeller Foundation.

07:10Thank you very much indeed.

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