Collaboration needed for cleaner energy

An African expert on renewable energy has called for developing countries to gain more accessible renewable energy technology through global North-South and South-South collaboration.

China Daily moderated a panel discussion on "Renewable Energy — Powering a Safer Future" on Wednesday at the SDG Media Zone on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The SDG Media Zone, organized by the UN Department of Global Communications, is a media program that aims to accelerate action on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

The discussion occurred a day after the Global Renewables Summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly. The summit emphasized the goal of the UAE Consensus: to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and to keep the 1.5 C target within reach.

"When I speak from an African perspective, it's not just about tripling — it's about multiplying renewables fivefold. If we're aiming for five times the renewable energy capacity, we don't have time for disagreements on policy or comparing approaches," Wangari Muchiri, Africa director at the Global Renewables Alliance, said at the panel discussion. She also represents the Global Wind Energy Council, whose membership includes the top five original equipment manufacturers from China and the West.

"Coming from a developing country myself, when I try to import a solar panel into Kenya, I have to pay 30 percent more in capital costs, then I have to pay all the import duties, and finally, wait for the solar panel to arrive so I can deploy it in a solar farm," she said, adding that the process needed to be faster and ensure easier access.

"That means diversifying our supply chains, working through global North-South and South-South collaboration to transfer technology," she said.

Risks to supply chain

The concern about diversifying clean-energy supply chains stems from the concentration of critical mineral production — such as cobalt, lithium, and rare earth elements, or REEs — in a few regions, posing risks to supply chain stability.

For instance, the Democratic Republic of the Congo supplies 70 percent of the world's cobalt, and China provides 60 percent of REEs. Australia and Chile dominate lithium mining.

"Now, to reach the target of a tripling of new renewable energy by 2030, we are going to need a significantly larger amount of critical minerals. We need to create the opportunities for these resource-rich developing countries to really draw the benefit through value addition and industrial development, and investments," said Ditte Juul Jorgensen, co-chair of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.

Jorgensen, who is also the director-general for energy at the European Commission, called for diversifying the supply chain.

Muchiri called for changes in intellectual property laws to facilitate the sharing of technology.

"We need some movement around IP laws to figure out how we can share," she said.

Francesco La Camera, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency, said at the panel that time is the most crucial factor in fighting climate change, as "the physics of climate doesn't allow us to delay. If we don't act now, we'll pay for the damage later."