Mines and Energy minister, Tom Alweendo says Namibia will not compromise its ability to solve the country’s socio-economic problems by cutting off potential fossil fuels.
“Our position is that it does not make sense for us to suffocate ourselves by cutting off potential hydrocarbon resources that could assist in solving our socio-economic problems. It is more sensible to take a pragmatic approach in the energy transition conversation. Our concerns are more with providing livelihoods and supplying basic necessities to the country’s growing population,” he told an Energy Conference on Wednesday.
“Namibia and the African continent at large do not have Green Energy yet and the main aim at hand is to sustain livelihoods and produce revenue with the resources available without reneging the Countries commitment to the Paris Agreement.”
This comes after the country made two offshore oil discoveries that have increased Namibia’s potential to become an oil producing country, a development which has the potential to generate over N$500 billion in potential revenues in the coming decade through taxes and royalties charged to the oil sector according to investment advisory firm Cirrus Capital.
Further noting that Africa is only responsible for 3% of the global carbon dioxide emission, Alweendo said “we suffer from energy poverty and this is despite the natural abundance of fossil fuels and renewable energy resources.”
He said government’s position on energy transition is that, “it has to be just, especially when taking into regard the sources of energy available in like hydrogen carbons, fossil fuels, that can be leveraged to diamondize the economies and provide livelihoods from those resources, thus Governments argument is that they should be allowed to do that.”
“We have an energy crisis that is spilling its havoc on economic, social and political issues. We therefore need to start asking ourselves some difficult but necessary questions on how best to navigate the rocky shores of reality and arrive safe on the other side. How do we navigate the geopolitics of energy? How do we go about navigating around the energy environmental issues?” he said.
He said Africa remains faced with a huge energy gap which requires massive investment, with estimates putting the figure at US$20 billion annually from now to 2030, with over 600 million of Africans not having access to electricity.
“It is therefore important for us on the continent to start making radical but informed measures on how to tackle the energy deficit. It is time that we become the main drivers of Africa’s future. If we are going to make Africa’s energy poverty a history, we need to start reimagining ourselves. We need to start to think differently about our capability. We need to start to think hard as to what needs to be,” the Mines and Energy Minister said.
