Going green still a challenge for developing countries

nicknamed Third World, which are playing catch-up with industrialised Europe.
Africa, has been a reluctant recipient of contested climate change deals agreed to at most international conferences.

Even when developing countries have acknowledged climate change and global warming as serious threats to human life today, and have started employing adaptation and mitigation measures, they are in an unambiguous paradox.
Tagged in the race for economic renaissance, Africa’s biggest challenge is to balance risk and responsibility, the attempt to promote sustainable developmental trends and sustainable lifestyles that stimulate a greening of the economy.

Global warming and climate change are not cheap talk, they are real but developing countries will stop at nothing in industrialising their economies.
It is a difficult truth but development in Africa will not effectively be driven by solar and wind power, the new alternative cleaner energies. Dangerous fuels such as coal will do the job.
Several factors work against wind or solar energies. The cost of developing say a solar field is very prohibitive as energy for just
70 000 households could gobble up to US$2 billion.

In 2005 Zesa, Zimbabwe’s power utility estimated that it would need between US$2 billion and US$5 billion to develop the country’s energy sector until last year, which would sufficiently cater for both industry and households.
Zimbabwe’s energy sector is predominantly dependent on coal-fired power stations and from hydropower.
Other developing nations such as Iran are pressing ahead with nuclear energy as key in their development plans. Nuclear energy is an enemy of the environment.

The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima this year are ample evidence that nuclear is a deadly energy source.
Even new attempts to pump carbon emissions from burning coal into the soil – the so-called clean coal – will eventually back-fire into the face of eco-friendly strategies, scientists have warned.
The world might therefore have to prepare itself for further release of carbon gases from development hungry developing countries in spite of reduction pledges to minimise their environmental impact.
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil drove the industrial revolution in Europe and America.

To this day, these are still major non-renewable energy sources at use in developed nations.
However, developed nations have sulked in the face of climate negotiations to cut emissions on global warming causing gases (Copenhagen 2009, Cancum 2010, Germany 2011).
Environmental governance is now a key issue because of climate change. Any economic and social development must first be checked for its impact on the environment and whether it adheres to practices for building a green economy inside the framework of sustainable development.

Africa needs to develop, or does it? At what cost? After all, developed nations scarcely keep the environment in check during their own economic renaissance and today are even reluctant to lick the wounds of the pollution they have caused.
Speaking at the UN climate conference in Germany last month, a senior analyst at Friends of the Earth International lambasted developed countries and the US in particular for their lukewarm approach to funding climate change related matters.

“Perhaps the biggest contribution the US government could make to these talks would be to cut the carbon of sending people to negotiations who refuse to negotiate.”
So does this improve Africa’s case for a fossil fuels driven industrialisation?

Maybe, but Africa together with other developing countries have been the first to come out of the blocks in defence of the world and human life against climate change.
Developing countries have shown credible commitment to mitigating the effects of global warming by ratifying international protocols and eventually moving to satisfy those agreements even when economic development remains a major concern for their economies.

However, sustainable development in Africa, which boasts some of the world’s largest natural resources will remain a great challenge for countries seeking economic advancement.
In Zimbabwe we have already seen that economic development takes precedence over the environmental governance issues.

The need to gain efficiency has led to massive deforestation in small-scale tobacco farming areas.
The Ministry of Environment has raised issue with farmers who have recklessly eliminated both exotic and indigenous trees to use as fuel in curing tobacco, one of Zimbabwe’s top foreign currency earners.

Even so, in the absence of wood fuel, farmers are still heavily dependant on coal, a dreaded carbon emitting fuel.
The Government, however, understands the need to balance economic development and environmental management.

It announced in its Medium Term Plan that: “With regards to the current concerns about global warming, climate change and the need to ensure sustainable growth which safeguards the health of the environment, government has taken on board these issues with environmental sustainability being fashioned in a cross-cutting issue . . . “

Other environment agents believe also that there is still hope for sustainable development in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole.

Charlene Hewatt, Environment Africa chief executive noted in a recent report that “there is need to focus on African solutions for the most pressing environment and development challenges, working with conservation and communities in a collaborative, innovative and action oriented way that promotes a sustainable future for Africa.
“If we are to re-orient the economy’s path to sustainability; what we really need is a totally new sector, perhaps termed the community sector, which would combine public sector objectives with private sector strategies.”
God is faithful.
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