Climate Justice and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Abstract:Economic development is not possible without increased per capita energy consumption, yet energy consumption has inherently negative impacts on the environment. This creates a problem in sub-Saharan Africa which is experiencing rapid population growth and long-term poverty. Because of this rapid population growth, even maintaining current standards of living will require increased total energy consumption, and alleviating poverty will require further energy consumption. At present, most of the world’s energy supply is met by fossil fuels and fossil fuels have been the means of development for nearly every nation that has ever reached middle-income status. However, if the nations of sub-Saharan Africa attempt to alleviate their poverty via economic growth and use fossil energy to fuel this economic growth, the world is unlikely to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit climate change to less than 1.5 or 2°C. If the earth warms by more than 2°C the effects are likely to be especially dire in sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that this conflict in sub-Saharan Africa between alleviating poverty and addressing climate change is unjust, as African nations and their people have caused little of the carbon pollution that is already warming the planet, and have not benefited from this energy use. Therefore, we argue that the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, and developing nations more generally, are owed some compensation for their lost ability to use fossil fuels and that it is unjust for developed nations to simply encourage low-carbon development in Africa without such compensation.