Poor countries must not get caught up in oil dependence Our assistance goes to coal power in Mozambique

Lovisa Arvidsson

 

Published: Today 06.00 

 

Aftonbladet's leadership side is independently social democratic.

 

Electricity is a prerequisite for being able to rise from poverty - but it needs to come from green energy sources. Photo: Martin Meissner / AP 

 

LEADER 

 

Today, 800 million people in the world live without access to electricity. In Africa, it is about every second person on the continent. 

 

It is completely impossible to lift oneself out of poverty without the possibility of lighting a lamp. To be able to easily cook and cool food. To be able to turn on a fan when the heat becomes unbearable. Doing schoolwork after dark or writing important job emails on a computer. 

 

Things that the industrialized world has long taken for granted. 

 

The World Bank has warned that if nothing is done to slow down climate change, it could lead to another 100 million people being forced into poverty. Only the coming years. 

 

Green path to industrialization 

 

With the acute climate change we are facing, much that we have taken for granted will need to be rethought. Countries that today are trying to rise from poverty cannot follow the path we have taken. They must skip the fossil fuel phase on their path to prosperity and go straight to developing renewable energy. 

 

Today, we seem to have a 50 percent chance of meeting the goal of 1.5 degrees warming by the year 2026. Then we can not afford for more countries to go straight into the trap that fossil dependence entails. 

 

When the western world was industrialized at the end of the 18th century, both house facades and the workers' lungs were colored black by the smoke that was spit out of the factories. Nowadays, there is both knowledge and technology to make other choices. Wind power and solar energy are developing rapidly. If we get a breakthrough in technology with how we can store renewable energy, we are facing a revolution in climate change. 

 

But it costs money, big money to fix green energy to the places where today there is no electricity at all.

 

Aid has gone to coal power 

 

A large part of the World Bank's investments in poor countries have long gone to fossil fuels. A report from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation states that the World Bank Group has provided 16 times more funding for fossil fuels than for renewable energy in Mozambique. It has opened up for Mozambique to become a major coal exporter. 

 

That may not have been the case. 

 

The World Bank and other global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the EU must phase out their investments in fossil fuels. Instead, they should redirect to renewable energy in the countries that have the industrial journey ahead of them. We hardly want to see more countries tying up with oil from Saudi Arabia or Russia. 

 

Recent times have shown too well how bad it can go.