Take Saudi Arabia. While it is an afluent country as a result of its oil wealth, as with other countries across the Middle East, much of Africa and south Asia, it has huge solar potential. While it might be unsurprising that the Kingdom is increasingly involved in solar technology, the scale of a deal it negotiated in early 2018 – to build 200 terawatts of solar capacity across the country by 2030 – came as a shock. For context, that is four times the peak use for the whole of the United Kingdom, a country with a population more than twice its size. While Saudi Arabia has the funds to build such historically unprecedented infrastructure – when completed it will be the greatest solar development in history – this is precisely the scale and ambition that is needed to move the world beyond fossil fuels by 2040.
But given that most of the Global South lacks those kinds of resources, any reliance on petrodollars to fund transition is inadequate. Just like the wealthier countries, that will mean National Energy Investment Banks coupled with significant reforms to the World Bank – an organisation which is, at present, primarily responsible for providing loans to poorer countries for capital programmes. Currently comprised of two institutions – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA) – its stated goal is the reduction of global poverty through the promotion of foreign investment and international trade. But while its intended purpose is laudable, there can be little doubt it is failing. That is because its understanding of development is built on an ideological commitment to free trade and a worldview which, in the context of the Third Disruption, makes increasingly little sense.
As our technologies move to extreme supply, such fidelity to market fundamentalism will only serve to entrench poverty rather than eliminate it. Without recognising this problem, global capitalism will under-develop these regions more acutely than ever, meaning that what should be the energy powerhouses of tomorrow will remain unable to even guarantee access to electricity for their citizens.
Fundamental Principles
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