Essay by Eric Worrall

Do you think there might be a connection?

Africa’s climate change balancing act: green energy vs economic development

Published: January 17, 2025 11.50pm AEDT
Oluwafikayo Akeredolu
PhD Candidate, University of Oxford

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I research climate finance and investigated what drives sub-Saharan Africa’s climate ambitions. I also wanted to find out whether wealthier sub-Saharan African nations were more likely to prioritise economic development over aggressive climate commitments than the region’s more impoverished nations. 

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I found that wealthier sub-Saharan African nations (measured by gross domestic product per capita) show lower levels of climate ambition. Nigeria and South Africa, for instance, are wealthier than many others in Africa. But they’re under political and economic pressure to expand energy access and industrial capacity. This can limit them from curbing greenhouse gas emissions. 

It’s clear from my study that gross domestic product per capita was the only statistically significant determinant of climate ambition among sub-Saharan African countries. This reveals how economic priorities often shape countries’ climate commitments.

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I have several recommendations based on my findings.

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Third, renewable energy must be promoted, particularly through investments in solar, wind, and hydropower. The region’s natural resources must be used to move countries away from fossil fuels.

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Read more: https://theconversation.com/africas-climate-change-balancing-act-green-energy-vs-economic-development-244758

The referenced paper;

African climate politics and multilateralism: Domestic factors and cross-country variation in climate ambitions

Fikayo Akeredolu

Pages 273-292 | Received 29 Feb 2024, Accepted 03 Oct 2024, Published online: 28 Oct 2024

ABSTRACT

This article examines how domestic factors explain variations in the ambitions of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Although Africa contributes only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is highly vulnerable to climate change. All 54 African countries have ratified the Paris Agreement, and by May 2022, 44 had submitted updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs), showing strong commitment to mitigating global temperature rise. Although SSA countries’ NDCs are more robust than the global average, significant cross-country variations exist. This article builds on the limited research on these variations to explore whether democracy, GDP, oil consumption, and historical emissions influence NDC ambition across 44 SSA countries. The analysis finds a statistically significant negative relationship between GDP and NDC ambition, while other variables show no significance. This study is crucial for understanding how domestic factors shape climate commitments in SSA.

Read more: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10220461.2024.2413686

The odd part of this article is, having discovered a statistically significant inverse correlation between climate ambition and national wealth, the author’s recommendation is to promote green energy and try to raise climate ambition in wealthy nations? Does she want to keep Africa poor?

Surely a more reasonable conclusion is there may be something about “climate ambition” which damages national economies?

Africa is not alone in showing such a correlation. High climate ambition Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have suffered years of energy poverty and economic difficulties. Yet despite the Biden Presidency, the USA, with consistently lower climate ambition, has a much healthier economy.

China is the odd man out when it comes to climate ambition vs economic progress, though some of the damage can be attributed to “climate ambition”. Despite their recent climate efforts, China is a coal powered economy which appears to be on the brink of a deep recession. But there are other factors affecting the Chinese economy, such as China’s gross mishandling of the Covid pandemic, Xi Jinping’s incompetent management of Chinese energy needs, China’s belligerent and disruptive posturing on the world stage, China’s brutal Maoist crackdown on business leaders, extreme local and regional government debt, and the ongoing banking crisis caused by their government’s long term failure to contain their property asset bubble, which I believe can more than account for China’s current economic woes.

The litany of problems being experienced by China makes me wonder if climate ambition is a proxy for more serious problems with governance. Perhaps governments which place climate ambition ahead of economic development are dysfunctional in other ways, which might make climate ambition a good litmus test for overall government incompetence, but not necessarily the complete explanation for why economies run by the climate ambitious perform so poorly.

I hope after Oluwafikayo Akeredolu wins her PhD she has an opportunity to reconsider her list of recommendations. Because the obvious conclusion from her research is if Africa wants to be rich, they need to ditch climate ambition, and fix whatever other problems led to the prioritising of climate ambition.

Who can forget Keir Starmer’s Six Milestones? Who can remember them? Were there even six?

It’s barely a fortnight since the latest Government Reset, and I’ve already forgotten what happened. It was a case of cold reboot and the start screen showing something substantially similar to what went on before: it was still broken.

If I had to take a stab, I’d have to say there were in fact six of the Milestones. One of them was “Cleanish” energy by 2030. The other five? I’m guessing that we had an NHS waiting list target. Stop the boats? Something on stop the boats? Net immigration in the “tens of thousands”? Fastest growth in the G7? An army? Less stab stab stab on the streets?

Nope, I’m going to have to check. According to Sky,

The milestones cover six policy areas – healthcare, policing, education, housebuilding, energy and the economy.

Here’s the list:

Raise living standards and aim at the highest growth in the G7.

A 92% target for a shorter than 18-week wait for NHS treatment.

1.5 million new homes.

“Cleanish” power by 2030.

More cops. 13,000.

75% of 5-year-olds ready to learn when they start school.

The first is what ought to be a trivial task in “ordinary” times. Two, three and four won’t happen. Five is trivial. Six is a joke.

Milestones come and go. Who can forget Rishi Sunak’s? Well, me for one. They’re not quite as faint a memory as the list of concessions that David Cameron came back from Europe with. Stop the boats! That’s the ticket. Actually, it’s the most expensive ferry to Britain you can take. Don’t worry, we don’t check your passport before embarkation.

Why is Jit rambling about milestones, you might wonder?

Well, it occurred to me that the UK might be in a doom loop. A doom loop is, or at least I think of it as, a damaging, indeed dooming, cycle in which actions taken to address a problem only make matters worse. A classic example is the fine British pub, which responds to a lack of customers by putting up the price of a pint of beer, resulting in fewer customers, and the need to raise prices further, unto doom, windows covered in oriented strand board, and eventually a couple of nice flats.

On the back of a fag packet – I don’t smoke, I just happened to have one handy – I wrote a list of what I decided to call “Starmer’s Millstones.” You see what I did there?

Starmer’s Millstones

Here is my list.

1. The green electricity crap.

2. The Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate.

3. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.

4. Employer’s NI.

5. War on the rich.

6. Grocery tax.

Will these measures make things better for Britain?

1. The green electricity crap.

Aficionados of this site are well aware that if your electricity generator has to have three qualities – cheap, reliable, and no carbon dioxide emissions – it belongs in the pages of a book by Douglas Adams. It is quite obvious to everyone, except the people who matter, that pushing the UK into a renewables future is going to end up with electricity costing twice as much, or more, and finally going off with a sad little fizzle, probably permanently. It also has a number of other disadvantages, like the fact that carpeting good English land with solar panels means it cannot be used to grow crops, which will increasingly have to be imported. Oh, it also needs to compete with the fantasy-land 1.5 million houses that are (not) going to get built in the next 5 years. And having extension leads trailing all over the North Sea does wonders for energy security. Vlad probably doesn’t even want to sabotage offshore wind farms anyway. Why interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake? Doubling electricity bills? Make the poor, poorer. And from Vlad’s point of view, make it impossible for the UK to afford to have an armed forces to speak of. Of course, I should point out that the Government want to borrow on the open market to pay for all the green electricity crap. And the markets are just throwing money at the Government like guests hurling confetti over the bride and groom, knowing how much growth the green electricity crap is going to generate. Or are they? In fact, the numbers seem to show that our lenders think we are just going to burn the money. Which is probably fairly accurate.

2. The Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate.

If you wanted to boost the UK’s vehicle manufacturing industry – one of the few that remains here – then forcing manufacturers to build cars that they can’t sell is quite the doom loop move. And they will try to patch things together by making the better cars more expensive, or making the VED on older cars as much as they are worth. Making it harder to own or use a car… makes the poor, poorer.

3. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.

I happened to notice that our carbon is leaking. Places around the world like to do things cheaply. Like growing crops with fertiliser made using methane. Of course, in the doom loop world, you have to raise a tax on imports of food grown in those conditions. So on the one hand we’re carving out chunks of farmland and using them for other purposes. Then we’re making food imports more expensive. This makes poor people poorer: everyone has to eat.

4. Employer’s NI.

Not strictly a climate matter, but there is an angle here, and it’s a perfect example of a doom loop move. Not getting enough taxes in to pay for all those green crap intermittent power thingies? Slap a tax on jobs. That way, you’ll raise tonnes of dosh. Oh wait. No, you won’t. You’ll cause companies to fire employees because they can’t afford to keep them on. They won’t hire new employees. They’ll bang up their prices – just like the pub – and spiral down into the doom loop. As you know, all I know about economics I learnt from “Economics for Dummies.” But throttling the horse that you want to pull the cart has to be the dumbest move you can take as a government, unless you really want the doom loop. Those newly-unemployed people will need subsistence pay, enforcing yet another doom loop. People afraid of losing their jobs won’t change jobs. They won’t move house. They won’t spend money. They won’t buy a shiny new EV. If you want to boost the economy, this is stupid. Part-timers? Low paid? Your jobs are the first in line. It’s a great way to make the poor… even poorer.

5. War on the rich.

Tax the rich! That’ll show ’em. Will it? Will it really? Or will they just naff off elsewhere, and take their wealth-creation mojo with them? It will raise taxes! No, not if the rich have naffed off. It will reduce taxes. But at least Britain will be a fairer country? Yes, we’ll all be poorer together.

6. Grocery tax.

(Yes; this is a trivial example.) Taxing packaging is a seductive idea, except when you realise that supermarkets already try to minimise packaging – who wants to pay for something they don’t need? I look forward to the day that eggs are laid out loose, like apples used to be, when the UK still had orchards. (It is eminently possible to re-use egg boxes.) Can’t see any wastage going on there, can you? Who will pay this tax? Shoppers. Making poor people poorer.

Editorial

This is not a party-political point. Yes, Labour is awful. I can’t even think of a suitable adjective for how awful they are. But the Conservatives started this doom loop. They started Net Zero, and the Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate, and the Boiler Tax (which I haven’t even mentioned above!). They have only recently begun to whistle a slightly different tune. And that is as infuriating as anything else, because the obvious facts were right there under their noses, and all it took was for them to be booted out of power – to have the ability to do anything useful removed from them – for them to suddenly realise that they themselves had doggedly steered us down this ruinous path in defiance of all good sense, and in pursuit of the shallow appearance of virtue, that they had tipped the UK into a doom loop.

Conclusion

Everything is terrible, and it’s getting worse, and the worseness is getting worse faster and fasterer; in short, we’re in a doom loop.

A wise man once proposed to “cut the green crap.” If a government wanted to achieve something useful – like improving living standards – it would do well to heed that call. I think it might be a good shout for getting out of the doom loop, too.

I always warn against despair, but right now, rivers of hope are flowing out of the UK. We need to stem that flow.

It looks like ExxonMobil has finally had enough of California’s environmentalist clown show. In a move that can only be described as epic, Exxon has filed a defamation lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta and his merry band of activist accomplices, including the Sierra Club and other virtue-signaling outfits. Their crime? Allegedly smearing Exxon’s reputation with claims that are as baseless as they are self-serving​​.

Let’s set the stage. Bonta, ever the aspiring political showman, has spent years targeting Exxon and other oil companies. In 2022, he subpoenaed Exxon as part of his crusade against the so-called “global plastics crisis.” By 2024, he upped the ante, accusing the company of running a “decades-long campaign of deception” about plastics recycling. According to Bonta, ExxonMobil has been lying to the public, pushing the “myth” of recycling while raking in billions and polluting the planet. Oh, the horror​​.

But here’s the kicker: ExxonMobil isn’t rolling over. This isn’t some slapped-together PR campaign or a weak press release meant to placate the mob. No, Exxon took the gloves off and went straight to federal court in Beaumont, Texas. Why Texas? Because they know better than to trust California courts, which are about as friendly to oil companies as PETA is to a steakhouse. The lawsuit calls out Bonta and his pals for what they really are: political opportunists running a “deliberate smear campaign” under the guise of environmentalism​​.

Calling Out the Greenwashed Hypocrisy

ExxonMobil’s lawsuit points out the irony of Bonta’s accusations, labeling his campaign as “reverse greenwashing.” While these so-called environmentalists strut around proclaiming their moral superiority, they’re actually undermining legitimate recycling efforts and stifling innovation. And for what? Political points and donations. The lawsuit even suggests that Bonta’s antics are less about protecting the planet and more about padding his résumé for his inevitable run at higher office​.

And let’s not forget the hypocrisy of California’s own policies. The state collects recycling fees on every plastic bottle you buy, yet much of that plastic ends up in overseas dumps, contributing to the same pollution crisis they claim to be combating. If anyone is perpetuating a scam here, it’s California​.

You can tell that Attorney General Bonta had been caught off guard by this,” explained environmental lawyer Leonard Grissom to the Globe on Monday. “Usually, with a defamation suit like this, they are quick to a response. But not here.

“And it’s odd. Exxon, as well as other big oil companies, have been going after environmentalists more and more. And Exxon’s reaction to the suit in September showed that they had just about enough of all this mishegoss. They assumed too much here, and this suit shows it. Bonta and those environmental groups are going to respond soon. And when they do, we are going to see exactly just what kind of legal battle we are in for. Oil companies usually don’t respond like this.

https://californiaglobe.com/fl/exxonmobil-sues-ag-rob-bonta-environmental-groups-over-defamation/

ExxonMobil’s legal move isn’t just a defense—it’s a declaration. For years, Bonta and his ilk have been using oil companies as scapegoats for every environmental issue under the sun. Now, Exxon is saying, “Not today, Rob. Not today.” This lawsuit could very well expose the shaky foundation of Bonta’s entire crusade​​.

The company is demanding damages and a full retraction of the defamatory statements. In other words, they’re not just playing to win—they’re playing to embarrass. And while Bonta’s office has yet to respond, it’s safe to say the pressure is on. After all, defamation cases require evidence, not just political bluster​.

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just about ExxonMobil. It’s about pushing back against the broader climate hysteria and the politicians who exploit it for power. The environmental movement, for all its high-minded rhetoric, has become a religion—a dogma enforced by fearmongering and pseudo-science. And ExxonMobil’s lawsuit might just be the first step in holding these zealots accountable.

It’s about time someone stood up to these eco-bullies. Bonta and his allies are quick to vilify corporations while conveniently ignoring the real-world benefits these companies provide—like, say, affordable energy and materials that make modern life possible. Sure, plastics have issues. But if Bonta were serious about solutions, he’d be working with companies like Exxon, not slandering them in a transparent bid for votes.

Conclusion

So here we are: ExxonMobil versus the State of California and its self-righteous minions. It’s a classic David-and-Goliath tale, except this time, David is packing billions in resources and a top-notch legal team. Rob Bonta, on the other hand, might want to rethink his career strategy. Because when the dust settles, this lawsuit could leave his political ambitions in the same state as California’s high-speed rail project: derailed and going nowhere fast.

ExxonMobil’s lawsuit isn’t just justified—it’s a long-overdue reckoning. Let’s see how Rob Bonta and his greenwashed army fare when they’re forced to play by the rules of actual evidence and accountability. My guess? Not well.