Africa stands at an energy crossroads. One path continues to deepen dependence on oil, gas and coal fuels that have generated revenues for governments and corporations while leaving many communities with polluted water, degraded land, damaged ecosystems, poor health and lost livelihoods. The other path leads toward an energy future built around the resources Africa possesses in abundance: sunshine, wind, geothermal heat, flowing water, sustainable biomass and the ingenuity of its people.
Renewable energy is more than a technological alternative. For Africa, it is an opportunity to pursue a just energy transition, one that expands access to affordable energy, creates dignified employment, protects communities and ecosystems, strengthens economies and confronts the climate crisis without sacrificing the continent’s most vulnerable people.
The heart of Africa beats with the rhythm of nature. To preserve its essence, we must say no to further fossil fuel dependence and yes to nurturing renewable energy sources that harmonise with the land.
The Cost of Fossil Fuel Development Is Being Paid by Communities
For decades, Africa’s natural resources have been presented as the foundation of economic development. Oil has been drilled in Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Algeria, Ghana and South Sudan. Gas has become a major industry in countries such as Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Ghana. Coal mining has shaped energy systems and economies in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Yet beneath the promise of revenues and development lies another story, the story of communities living with the consequences of extraction.
In Kenya’s Turkana County, the South Lokichar Basin has become a powerful illustration of this tension. Tullow Oil explored the basin for more than a decade before selling its Kenyan interests to an affiliate of Gulf Energy in 2025. In January 2026, UN human rights experts recorded concerns regarding alleged human rights abuses connected to fossil fuel extraction in Lokichar , including concerns about the free, prior and informed consent of Turkana Indigenous Peoples.
For communities such as Nakuklas, the debate over oil is not an abstract conversation about barrels, exports and national revenues. It is about ancestral land, homes, livelihoods, water, pastoralism and the right to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their future. The lesson from Lokichar is profound: an energy project cannot be considered successful if the people living where the resources are found become the people who carry the greatest social and environmental costs.
Across the border in Uganda and Tanzania, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) represents another major expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. Research by the Climate Accountability Institute estimates that emissions associated with the oil transported through the project over its planned 25 year life could reach approximately 379 million tonnes of CO₂, including emissions from transport, refining and eventual use of the oil.
This figure is staggering. It demonstrates that fossil-fuel infrastructure does not end with the construction of a pipeline. Its climate footprint continues through extraction, transportation, refining and combustion.
In South Africa, coal remains deeply embedded in the energy economy, particularly around Mpumalanga’s Highveld. Communities near coal mines and power stations face severe air pollution burdens. Research from the Centre for Environmental Rights describes the Mpumalanga Highveld as one of South Africa’s most polluted regions, with coal mining and coal fired power stations releasing pollutants including sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter associated with respiratory and cardiovascular risks.
In Ghana and other oil producing countries, gas flaring adds another dimension to the problem. Gas flaring burns natural gas produced alongside crude oil, releasing carbon dioxide, unburned methane and other pollutants. The World Bank estimates that globally about 167 billion cubic metres of gas were flared in 2025 roughly equivalent to Africa’s annual gas consumption.
Perhaps nowhere is the social and environmental cost of oil more visible than Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Oil exploration and production began there in the late 1950s, yet decades of extraction have not translated into universal prosperity for the communities living alongside oil infrastructure. In Ogoniland alone, home to roughly 832,000 people, UNEP documented extensive contamination of land, groundwater, creeks and mangrove ecosystems.
UNEP found that in at least ten Ogoni communities, drinking water was contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons. In Nisisioken Ogale, benzene concentrations in groundwater were reported at more than 900 times the World Health Organization guideline. The assessment also found that oil pollution had damaged mangroves and fisheries and that air pollution associated with oil-industry operations was affecting the quality of life of close to one million people.
This is the contradiction Africa must confront. A resource can be economically valuable while simultaneously destroying the ecological and social foundations upon which communities depend.
The Niger Delta experience also reminds us that fossil-fuel impacts do not disappear when drilling slows. UNEP notes that although oil operations in Ogoniland were suspended in the early 1990s, pipelines continue to cross the region and contamination remains untreated or only partially remediated.
The consequences extend from climate change to polluted water, declining agricultural productivity, damaged fisheries, respiratory problems, displacement, community tensions and the erosion of traditional livelihoods.
Renewable Energy Is Africa’s Opportunity for a Just Transition
Africa does not lack energy resources. It has an extraordinary abundance of renewable energy resources.
From the geothermal fields of Kenya’s Rift Valley to the solar corridors of North Africa; from the winds of Morocco, Egypt, South Africa and northern Kenya to the hydropower potential of the Congo Basin; from solar mini-grids in rural communities to sustainable biomass and clean cooking technologies,the continent possesses the ingredients for a different energy future.
Kenya offers one of the clearest examples. Geothermal energy has become a major component of the country’s electricity system, while projects such as the Lake Turkana Wind Power project demonstrate the enormous potential of wind energy. Solar power is also expanding rapidly through grid connected systems, mini grids and distributed household solutions.
Across Africa, the solar revolution is already accelerating. In 2025, the continent experienced strong growth in installed solar capacity, with countries including Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Zambia and Botswana expanding their solar markets.
This transformation matters because renewable energy can do something fossil fuels have repeatedly failed to do at sufficient scale bring energy development closer to people while reducing dependence on Fossil fuels.
Solar home systems can provide electricity to households beyond the reach of national grids. Mini grids can power rural schools, health centres, farms and small businesses. Solar powered irrigation can strengthen food production. Clean cooking technologies can reduce dependence on polluting fuels. Battery storage can improve reliability. Wind and geothermal power can provide large scale electricity. Renewable energy can therefore become not only an environmental solution, but an economic development strategy.
And this is where Africa’s young people enter the story.
The renewable energy transition is an opportunity to create a new generation of African entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians, installers, manufacturers, researchers, farmers and innovators. Young Africans are already designing solar solutions, manufacturing clean cookstoves, producing sustainable briquettes, building digital energy platforms and developing climate-smart businesses.
According to IRENA, Africa currently captures only a small share of global renewable-energy investment, but its potential for employment is immense. Research cited by IRENA indicates that Africa could generate between 1.5 million and 3.3 million direct green jobs by 2030, with the energy and power sector potentially accounting for up to two million of those jobs.
That is the meaning of a truly just transition: not simply replacing coal plants with solar panels, but creating an economy in which African communities own, participate in and benefit from the energy systems of the future.
Renewable energy is therefore not merely about reducing emissions. It is about expanding opportunity.
Africa Must Choose Its Future: Divest From Fossil Fuels, Invest in Life
We cannot keep talking about a just transition while simultaneously encouraging the continued exploration and development of oil, gas and coal as though the environmental and social consequences are somebody else’s problem.
Communities around Africa and the world have repeatedly voiced concerns about fossil fuel projects. Too often, those concerns have been overshadowed by political interests, corporate influence and narratives that measure development primarily through projected revenues and barrels extracted.
But Africa’s real wealth is not beneath the ground alone.
Our wealth is in our forests, rivers, wetlands, oceans, grasslands, wildlife, fertile soils, biodiversity, sunlight, wind and geothermal systems. Our wealth is also in our young people, the largest generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and changemakers the continent has ever seen.
Fossil fuels may offer short term economic gains, but they can leave behind long term environmental liabilities. Renewable energy offers the possibility of generating economic value while protecting the ecological systems upon which that economy depends.
The question before Africa is therefore not whether development should happen. The question is what kind of development we choose.
The heart of Africa beats with the rhythm of nature. Our energy future should beat with it.
The time has come for African governments to stop treating fossil fuel expansion as the inevitable price of development. The time has come for corporations to move beyond extracting value from communities and begin investing in value that communities can sustain. The time has come for investors to divest from new fossil-fuel development and direct capital toward renewable energy. The time has come for development partners, banks, pension funds, universities, faith institutions and civil society to align their resources with a future that protects people and planet.
And above all, the time has come to trust Africa’s young people.
Let us divest from fossil fuels and invest in Africa’s renewable future. Let us move our money, policies, technologies and political imagination away from oil, gas and coal and toward the sun, wind, water, geothermal energy and the ingenuity of our people. Let us build an energy system that does not sacrifice communities for profit, but creates prosperity while protecting creation.
Renewables are not merely an alternative source of power. They are a sacred gift for Africa and it is our responsibility to use that gift to power a just, prosperous and sustainable future for generations yet unborn.
By Brian Misiati