By Moses Patience Chat
The Executive Secretary of the African Refiners and Distributors Association (ARDA), Anibor Kragha, has said that the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative is capable of to generating about $600 billion in revenue into the continent’s voluntary carbon market by the year 2030.
Kragha said this yesterday at the 2023 ARDA conference in Cape Town, South Africa, where he spoke about the need to balance the energy transition and energy security on the continent.
He also added that this will increase the role of the downstream sector in the energy transition and in emission reductions, and that energy security in Africa is a short term focus when compared to energy transition.
According to him, “the Russia-Ukraine war has caused shocks to our supply chain because we had not previously maximized investments in refining, storage and distribution. As we progress with the energy transition, we will keep energy security front and center.
He also added that the energy transition and energy security are complementary, but for Africa, energy security is the short-term focus, while the energy transition is longer term.
Commenting on the future of the energy sector, the ARDA Secretary General explained that energy demand in Africa will continue to grow through 2050 and that the role of the private sector will rest on providing a roadmap for those investments and how the continent can get the right type of financial institutions involved in the discussion.
Africa, he said, has more than 56 development finance institutions, which need to unite in supporting the continent’s oil and gas growth agenda.
In his remarks on which resource Africa needs more to advance the energy transition agenda, Kragha said that what the region needs is a robust energy mix for different types of energy to thrive in Africa.
His words: “What we need is a robust energy mix for different types of energy to thrive as required for Africa. There is going to be a huge space for gas and diesel, a place for solar and other renewables in meeting the demand. Fossil fuels will remain significant, which is why we need to make them cleaner now.
“Carbon credits will enhance Africa’s role in advancing global climate action, while meeting its energy needs. We will push for the creation of an African carbon credit trading platform to accelerate the creation of quality credits that are sought globally.”
Giving his comments on security in the African energy sector, the Kragha maintained that “for Africa to achieve security, we need to have infrastructure that will allow us to monetize energy resources and address reliability, access and affordability challenges.
“Africa has only contributed less than three percent of global emissions, and even if we monetize all of our natural gas reserves through the deployment of projects such as EACOP and the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, our carbon footprint will not go above 3.5% of global emissions.
“We will continue to address our energy security challenges to be able to mitigate disruptions to our economies,” he concluded.
