- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
Daniel Duma is a research fellow and Miquel Muñoz Cabré is a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).
Large-scale renewable energy is an unlikely success story in sub-Saharan Africa.
As our new work shows, between 2013 and 2023, the installed capacity in wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) energy in the region increased by a factor of 16. And that excludes South Africa, which has installed capacity in wind and solar PV energy of approximately 9,000 MW – higher than all the rest of the sub-Saharan region combined.
This is a remarkable feat. From almost zero in 2010, to around 200 MW in 2013 and then 3,500 MW in 2023, with additional capacity under construction in 2025, utility-scale projects are being developed, financed, built and connected to the grid in nearly all sub-Saharan African countries. This has happened despite major challenges, including conflict, political turmoil, the COVID-19 pandemic, ballooning inflation and public debt.
Total variable renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa in MW (excluding South Africa)
Efforts thus far have not accomplished enough, with too many people and economies still lacking access to electricity. But this does not make the achievements any less significant, especially when we consider how difficult it is to finance even one moderately sized project in countries where the energy system as a whole is not financially viable for investments. The fact that progress continues despite this monumental barrier is impressive.
What are the secrets that underpin this accomplishment?
Investment despite struggling utilities
The achievements at the utility scale are the result of sustained efforts of various actors in dealing with risks. This work entails offering investors an acceptable level of comfort that they will recover their investment with a decent return on the capital they commit. With most countries in the region affected by high levels of sovereign debt, depreciating currencies, and the poor financial health of public utilities (the buyers of energy from such projects), this is no simple task.
Investors, private or quasi-private (multilateral development banks and development finance institutions) deploy capital into project structures that depend on revenues from utilities that are known to face difficulties in meeting their payment obligations. While many such utilities are undergoing corporate turnaround processes, it will take time for them to improve their financial status. In the meantime, despite these fundamental challenges, projects continued to be developed, financed and built.
Trial and error has been making these achievements possible. Among them: using viable businesses as anchors for additional investments; adopting leasing models; employing a wide variety of risk-mitigation and transfer instruments; and creating programs that offer guarantees and insurance options with different features and implications.
Fossil fuel nations to see value of their economies shrink under new UN-agreed measure
All this trial and error generated significant results: In Malawi, the Salima and Golomoti solar PV plus storage projects added approximately 20% (80 MW) to the country’s total installed capacity at the time. In Mozambique, a country recovering from civil war, the challenging Mocuba PV project created a demonstration effect and led to subsequent progress, including an EU-backed competitive selection program for additional capacity.
In Cameroon, a new solar plus storage leasing model expanded capacity by 30 MW and replaced the use of diesel generators. In Kenya, the Turkana wind project is the largest private investment in the country’s history. In Senegal, Uganda and Zambia, large PV projects were procured through competitive selection, and they have achieved record low prices. In Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Namibia large solar PV plants have also recently been commissioned.
All these cost-competitive, utility-scale projects add to the available capacity of these countries’ grids. They are powering cities and businesses and contributing to economic growth – without generating additional greenhouse gas emissions.
Small-scale power systems
It is true that the continent has yet to attract the “billions to trillions”, the flood of private financial investment that public financial investment hoped to unleash. We see that, at a rough installed cost of $1 per watt, the progress since 2013 across sub-Saharan Africa would amount to an investment of around $350 million a year, a figure that would be insignificant in any of the climate finance costing exercises.
But these exercises tend to forget the scale of power systems in sub-Saharan Africa. For illustration, in 2023, the power consumption in the region, excluding South Africa, was around 250 TWh (terrawatt hours) for a population of more than 1 billion people. That is roughly equal to the power consumption of Sweden and Norway, with a combined population of around 15 million people.
Electricity demand surges, expanding renewables and fossil fuels in 2024
The pursuit of progress requires thinking about contexts and scales. Small power systems cannot absorb enormous levels of investment overnight. It takes time to integrate hundreds of additional megawatts in capacity, and to pay back the high upfront investments that are needed.
This is a time to persevere – not to back off. This remarkable progress can continue only if trial and error and innovation continue. Local and international companies and governments must carry on working together to learn more and do better.
This comment piece is based on work with the Finance for Sustainable Development Program and a new SEI policy brief, “Insights for development interventions in the clean energy sector, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa”.
The post Finance for renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa is defying the odds appeared first on Climate Home News.
Finance for renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa is defying the odds
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Countries have failed – for the sixth time running – to agree on the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next set of influential reports.
The IPCC’s 65th session (IPCC-65) was seen by many to be the final opportunity for countries to agree on a schedule where its seventh assessment report (AR7) would be published in time for the UN’s second “global stocktake” of climate action.
Before last week’s meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, IPCC chair Prof Sir Jim Skea had warned that releasing the reports in time for the stocktake in 2028 would depend on a timelines being agreed by the end of 2026.
But the week-long meeting descended into fraught disagreements between governments, resulting in Skea “suspending” the talks on Friday evening with no decision made.
Countries were also unable to agree on the IPCC’s budget for the rest of the AR7 cycle, leaving the body with a “serious funding crisis”.
The IPCC has pledged to reconvene the meeting at the “earliest opportunity”; however, it has not yet given an indication of when this will be.
In his concluding remarks, Skea described the Addis Ababa summit as a “profound disappointment” and “among the most difficult IPCC meetings”, according to reporting from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Some countries have reacted with dismay to the breakdown of negotiations, warning that a failure to have the IPCC’s latest assessments on climate adaptation and mitigation ready for the UN stocktaking exercise would undermine global climate action.
A climate envoy from a Pacific island state said it was a “travesty that a handful of countries continue to delay the IPCC’s reports – the science we need back home to help us save lives and livelihoods”.
Below, Carbon Brief explores the key developments, debates and disagreements at the IPCC meeting.
- What timeline options were delegates debating?
- How did the timeline discussions unfold?
- What were the main points of disagreement?
- Why is the IPCC in a ‘serious funding crisis’?
- How have scientists reacted?
- What other issues remain unresolved?
- How are the IPCC AR7 reports progressing?
- How might the IPCC use AI and enhance gender inclusivity?
What timeline options were delegates debating?
Top of the agenda during the Addis Ababa meeting was a decision on the timeline of the publication of AR7’s three working group reports – also known as the “work plan”. The three reports cover climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3).
Countries failed to reach a resolution on the scheduling of the influential reports at five consecutive IPCC meetings since 2024 – despite drafting being well underway.
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s write-up of discussions in Istanbul, Sofia, Hangzhou, Lima and Bangkok.)
Reporting from the ENB from inside these meetings has highlighted that countries are split, broadly, into two groups – those that want all three reports to be published in time for the UN’s second “global stocktake” in 2028, and those that one, or more, to be published afterwards.
A key pillar of the Paris Agreement, the global stocktake is a formal assessment of the world’s collective progress on tackling climate change. The exercise is designed to guide future global climate action, including decisions on national emissions targets and climate finance.
The second global stocktake is due to culminate in late 2028 at the COP33 climate summit.
The Addis Ababa meeting was the final IPCC plenary where countries would be able to agree on a stocktake-aligned timeline. In April, Skea told Carbon Brief that publishing reports by the end of 2028 would only be possible if a decision was taken before the end of 2026.
India, Kenya, Russia and Saudi Arabia have emerged as among the loudest voices calling for a timeline where the IPCC’s latest assessment of climate impacts and mitigation are published after the stocktake. They have argued that developing countries need more time to prepare, review and approve working group reports.
A coalition of developed nations and small-island developing states, meanwhile, have argued in favour of all three reports being published in time for the stocktake, so that the latest climate science can inform future climate action.
(For more on the standoff around the reports and why it matters for climate action, read Carbon Brief’s explainer.)
Ahead of the Addis Ababa meeting, the IPCC’s secretariat, on behalf of Skea, published a document setting out three options for a timeline for the working group reports. These are summarised below.
| Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 | ||||
| Proposal set out by working group co-chairs at IPCC-61 in Sofia. | Revisited proposal presented by working-group co-chairs at IPCC-63 in Lima. | Submissions by India and Saudi Arabia to a survey sent out by IPCC in 2026. | ||||
| Report approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval | Plenary | Proposed month of approval |
| Working Group 1 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 | IPCC-69 | May 2028 |
| Working Group 2 | IPCC-70 | June 2028 | IPCC-70 | July 2028 | IPCC-71 | April 2029 |
| Working Group 3 | IPCC-71 | July 2028 | IPCC-71 | Sept 2028 | IPCC-72 | July 2029 |
Source: Table 1 and Appendix A in “Work plan of the IPCC seventh assessment report”, IPCC.
Over several days of fraught talks in Addis Ababa, the number of timeline options in contention ballooned to seven – before being reduced down to four.
How did the timeline discussions unfold?
On Monday, Skea established a “contact group”, chaired by Brazil and Ireland, to focus on the timeline issue.
By Friday morning, the group reported back to the plenary that they were still a “long way from consensus”, according to the ENB.
By that afternoon, four options still remained – the three set out by the IPCC ahead of the meeting and a fourth, proposed by Haiti, which would see WG1 approval in April 2028, WG2 in July 2028 and WG3 in October 2028.
The IPCC’s secretariat subsequently presented a “draft decision” for the timeline issue to plenary, informed by the contact group’s work. The text did not establish a formal decision on the timeline, but presented a number of options for how the IPCC could move forward on the issue, as well as proposals for addressing inclusivity concerns.
Two out of three options suggested that IPCC co-chairs to continue work on reports in 2027 “without prejudging the panel’s agreement on the timing of the respective approval sessions” and for timeline discussions to be continued at a future session.
Another suggestion was that the IPCC fund a second delegate for developing countries and “economies in transition” for future approval sessions.
After one delegation said they were uncertain how to engage with the draft text, Skea clarified the text had three elements – a preamble, the timeline and a section on inclusivity and avenues for providing input.
He said that “it was clear the panel would not be able to take a decision on the timeline at IPCC-65” and explained the idea was to include the four timeline options that emerged from the contact group in an annex “in order to capture progress made during IPCC-65”.
After countries were not able to agree on the draft decision, Skea suspended the meeting at 8:29pm on Friday.
He noted that it would no longer be inclusive for the meeting to continue, given that a number of delegations from developing countries had left.
Earlier in the plenary, Antigua and Barbuda’s delegation had emphasised that 6pm was its deadline and noted that