Africa, the "solution", not a "victim" of global climate change
Best-buy green hydrogen
“Jobs”, that is what Africa is concerned about
Unprecedented opportunities for Industial SME-partnerships Africa-Europe
Is it ethical to deny Africa - 25% of the world's population - modern comfort?
- Now focus in the EU on an innovative, more climate-friendly, more circular economy as a compensation for the possible relocation of energy-intensive activities to regions with the best-buy green hydrogen.
- Africa's manufacturing industrialisation prevents forced migration and conflicts and creates a huge market for EU products and services with high added value.
In order to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 C, we must degrow according to well documented research. Are we denying Africa the right to a modern society? Without industrialisation, by 2035, 25% of the world's population will be deprived of decent work, the root cause of forced migration, extreme ideologies and conflicts.
Structural changes that curb global warming and the asymmetry in prosperity with Africa
Energy-consuming industries (steel, cement, fertilizer, glass, aluminium) and their transport emit 25% of all CO2 worldwide. Can the rich West and China still hold on to jobs of these top emitters, when thanks to affordable green hydrogen, in the Sahara and Kalahari, the Inga Falls, the Aswan and other Nile dams these basic products can be produced and shipped emission-free?
Therefore, the suggestion to combine awareness-raising actions on "climate transition" with a positive narrative about the industrialisation of Africa. And to reassure the West that if energy-intensive industries move to regions with the cheapest green hydrogen, sufficient jobs will be created on “our continent”, thanks to innovation.
Europe benefits from the economic and social breakthrough of neighbouring Africa
Africa’s modern agri-food and manufacturing industrialisation is capable to create thirty million formal jobs a year and curb apoverty. Africa is blessed with the largest reserves of eternally renewable hydro-solar energy sources. "Noor" a concentrated thermo-solar power plant in Morocco generates 600 megawatts, almost as much as a nuclear power plant, and is also a model for the production of green hydrogen at low cost, for emission-free production and transport of energy-consuming materials.
Relocation of energy-intensive industries to regions with an abundance of renewables eliminates 25% of global carbon emissions. In Africa, this action will mark the start of a labour-intensive, non-smokestack, manufacturing industry by relying on cheap solar electricity and the local processing of natural resources in the short chain. It prevents forced migration and extreme ideologies and conflicts. In addition, at only 15 km from Europe, it creates the largest free market in the world, with purchasing power and enthusiasm for EU-products and services with high added value.
Is there still a future for existing business, powered by subsidized green fuel?
Shouldn't the EU prepare for the fact that rather soon than late shareholder activists will move high energy-consuming industries to regions with the cheapest hydrogen? And without further delay stimulate world citizenship and the creation of an ecosystem that encourages companies to invest in more innovative, sustainable and more recyclable manufacturing industries at home?
In the past, the EU has lost hundreds of thousands of "indispensable" jobs in the closure of coal mines and non-maritime steel, the loss of textiles, clothing, and national aviation prides, the closure of car assembly and consumer electronics. Lessons learned from the past should stimulate the EU, at an earlier stage than during last century, to compensate for the loss of high energy-intensive activities through the creation of new climate-friendly jobs. And not leave Africa’s industrialisation and its right to modernity to China.
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