Cutting Coal in Africa for Climate Genocide
Sept. 30, 2019 (EIRNS)—During his three minutes before the nature idolaters at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Sept. 23, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina made the fantastic declaration that Africa—the entire continent—should scrap coal power plants, in favor of solar and wind power sources. “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future,” Adesina told delegates in Manhattan. “For us at the African Development Bank, we’re getting out of coal.”
This is deadly folly. As LaRouchePAC’s Science Team leader Ben Deniston presented to a Baltimore forum audience Sept. 29, “60% of the global electricity is generated by coal and natural gas, so eliminating these CO2 emitting sources would deny the world’s population the right to electricity, and wipe out most of the world’s population, as these latter-day Nazis behind the climate change movement intend. Instead of reducing CO2, if we are really concerned with stopping mass death, we should make our objective, raising the electrical energy consumption of the poorest 34 nations of the world, which lack adequate electricity.”
According to Adesina (not known to be a genocidalist, himself), what Africa needs to do is to create “the largest solar zone in the world,” in the Sahara Desert. His remark, “There’s a reason God gave Africa sunlight,” was perhaps a poor attempt at humor. To accomplish this, he said, the AfDB intends to establish a $500 million green finance fund, designed to leverage $5 billion (10 times in private investments) for renewable projects. Adesina also referenced a $20 billion fund, although details on this (like the funds) are still “blowing in the wind.”
In real terms, what Adesina’s proclamation means is that the AfDB will no longer engage in financial relations with coal power producers, or their supporting infrastructure, including mines. Already, reports have surfaced of mine operators having to turn to their own equipment providers as alternative sources of funds for working capital. In South Africa, this directly impacts the fight concerning Eskom—electricity supplier to the entire region—already heavily indebted and dependent on government bail-out funding.
For millions of people in Southern Africa, electricity from coal is the only source of home heat and cooking. Take away coal, and the level of sickness will rise sharply. In a first-hand account of conditions this winter (just ending in South Africa), the failure of a single transformer (blew several months ago and has still not been replaced), caused sickness in the immediate area to increase drastically. Households were forced to resort to dangerously using kerosene for heating, and cooking, and candles for lighting—all fire hazards, and kerosene heaters can also produce carbon monoxide.
What is needed for Africa is a commitment to increase the power-density of the region at the source, specifically to begin the transition to nuclear power. Until that time, to cut coal with only a vague commitment to harvest sunbeams, is to cause many, many people to die unnecessarily.
