Bestselling Author NJ Ayuk Outlines His Plan To Help Africa

Two things can be true at once. Africa can move toward a future sustained by renewable energy sources and make use of its abundant fossil fuels, argues author NJ Ayuk in his latest book. 

A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History With an Energy Mix, which debuted at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list in March, outlines just how it can happen. 

As the executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber, NJ Ayuk has spent years working in and around Africa’s energy sector. 

In writing the book, he relied on his own experience as a lawyer whose firm, Centurion Law Group, has done extensive work in the industry, as well as on research and interviews with key business executives, community members, and energy experts. 

That work informed the plan NJ Ayuk outlines in his most recent work. His central thesis rests on the creation of a third option for Africa’s energy future. 

Too often, he says, the conversation around the future of energy devolves into a familiar and unhelpful dichotomy of environmentalists versus oil and gas companies. But NJ Ayuk doesn’t see these two sides as enemies locked in mortal combat. Instead, he advocates for a new kind of collaboration. 

He believes that environmentalists and energy companies can find common ground in an Africa-first approach that establishes a primary goal of helping people on the continent escape energy poverty.

“Right now, there are 600 million people in Africa who have no access to electricity,” NJ Ayuk said. “And there are 900 million people who lack access to clean cooking technologies. You can't discuss climate change without even looking at your energy poverty. They represent two sides of the same coin.” 

When the goal changes to helping people, it removes some of the animus from the conversation and allows both sides to present new solutions.

NJ Ayuk advocates for what he calls an “energy mix” approach. This would allow Africa to sell and use its own reserves of oil and natural gas to alleviate the poverty its people face, while at the same time moving toward a future in which renewable energy sources power the continent. 

Africa not only has more severe energy poverty than the developed world, but it also contributes far less to the problems that fossil fuels have caused. As part of his “just transition,” NJ Ayuk argues that Africa should not be held accountable for what other countries have done. Instead, he says, African countries should have less stringent rules and goals for the switch to sustainable sources of power. 

“Africa contributes 2% of the world’s carbon emissions even though we have about 17% of the world’s population,” he said. “Western and wealthy countries need to decarbonize and get to decarbonize fast. African nations need to industrialize first. They need to be allowed to use their gas, to use their oil, and sometimes coal to really power up.”

These resources serve multiple purposes, he says. Opening up new wells that can help supply Western countries as they transition away from Russian sources of power will create thousands of sorely needed jobs in Africa. At the same time, the new sources of energy can be used to help alleviate the lack of access to electricity that plagues many parts of the African continent.

Then, as European nations transition more quickly to sustainable energy sources, more of Africa’s natural resources can go toward powering the continent’s houses, hospitals, schools, and businesses that need access to power.

As the technology for sustainable energy matures and other countries complete their transitions to 100% renewable sources, Africa can catch up. By that time, Africa will have a much more expansive and reliable grid system, which will allow for an easier transition.

Not only does NJ Ayuk’s plan help more people more quickly than other proposals, but it follows current trends. That makes taking a people-first approach a practical way to help those who have traditionally been left behind by the energy sector while, at the same time, moving the world toward producing greener sources of electricity.

“Right now, South Africa is shipping more coal to Germany than it ever has. The U.K., for the first time in 30 years, is opening up coal-powered plants. Many European nations are opening federal lands for drilling,” NJ Ayuk said. “And then they turn around and tell Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, and all African countries that they need to be more sustainable. That is not a just energy transition. It’s not any kind of energy transition. A transition has to start somewhere. You cannot transition from the dark to the dark. We must deliver energy to the people of Africa and then worry about transitioning to environmentally friendly alternatives, just like we have everywhere else in the world.”