Kenya will fully transition to clean energy by 2030 - Uhuru Kenyatta

Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) at the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. [PSCU]

Countries at the ongoing global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland have pledged to phase out coal-fired power plants.

Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta told the COP26 summit, has developed a plan to maintain low carbon emissions by 2030 when the country aims at the full transition to clean energy.

Burning of coal is the single greatest contributor to climate change and a coalition of 18 countries including Egypt and Morocco, banks and top financial institutions also pledged to end funding for local and international coal projects. The time frame for implementation was not clear.

Other countries in the coalition include Poland, Chile and Vietnam. It is not clear whether the USA will join the coalition, but the Biden administration is banking on trillions of dollars in private investment to move global energy systems away from coal, oil and gas.

The World Coal Association, however, said the move largely ignores the fact that coal “remains critical to energy supply in 80 countries and the livelihood of more than 790 million people who have no access to reliable and affordable power.”

Kenya’s use of renewable energy accounts for 73 per cent of the country’s installed power generation capacity while 90 per cent of electricity in use is from green sources among them geothermal, wind, solar and hydro-electric installations.

"We are on course to achieve our target of 100 per cent use of clean energy by 2030 and to achieve 100 per cent access to clean cooking by 2028," President Kenyatta said.

Currently, Kenya has 30 to 75 per cent electricity coverage a project successfully implemented in the past nine years

"We have installed the biggest wind power plant in sub-Sahara Africa - the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, and are steadily exploiting and deploying available geothermal potential, currently estimated to be 10,000 Megawatts," he said.

President Kenyatta called on leaders of wealthier nations to take into consideration the "special needs and circumstances of Africa" in the fight against climate change.

As this unfolded a group of philanthropic foundations and international development banks on announced a $10.5 billion fund to help emerging economies with growing energy needs make the switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

The group, known as the Global Energy Alliance, aims to draw in more donors in the coming weeks.

At the moment, it has pulled in $1.5 billion from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ikea Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund, along with $9 billion from international development banks such as the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

The alliance says it aims to raise $100 billion in public and private capital to expand access to clean sources of electricity for a billion people in developing countries, create 150 million jobs and avoid the carbon emissions that would have been generated by power plants that run on coal.