Investing in Clean Transport and Leapfrogging to Zero Emissions in Africa

The implementation of improved fuel and vehicle emissions standards through regulations and investment in developed countries has been one of the major successes in efforts to reduce black carbon emissions. The majority (over 80%) of the world’s fuel markets have now shifting to the highest possible quality standards.  

The CCAC and UNEP Global Strategy to Introduce Low Sulphur Fuels and Cleaner Diesel Vehicles has been guiding work to facilitate the transition by all countries to ultra-low sulphur diesel (10ppm) and minimum Euro 6/VI emission standards by 2030.

Globally, the transport sector is responsible for about 14% of annual emissions (including non-CO2 gases) and around a quarter of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. The industry’s emissions are set to double by 2050, largely due to growth in low- and middle-income countries. Switching to electric vehicles, promoting wider use of public transportation and better designing cities to require less travel, among other policies, could reduce transportation emissions by more than 50%, according to UNEP.  

The Challenge for Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Low- and middle-income countries face a different set of challenges, as they are often export destinations for used vehicles, and are still in the process of developing comprehensive fuel and vehicle standards which consider the socio-economic circumstances of their communities. 

Many low-and middle-income countries are also experiencing high economic growth, causing an increase in polluting used trucks to meet rising freight requirements while still using high-sulphur diesel. Emissions standards applied to new vehicles also do not apply to the export of used heavy-duty vehicles.  

Africa receives around 20% of all used heavy vehicle exports, and even though HDVs are significantly fewer in number compared to light duty vehicles (LDVs), they are an outsized contributor to black carbon emissions. Buses can emit more than 250 times as much black carbon as a gasoline passenger vehicle traveling the same distance.

Targeted investments in the use of heavy-duty vehicles can however achieve major reductions in black carbon before comprehensive fuel and vehicle standards are regulated and implemented. These investments include developing electric vehicle infrastructure, financial incentives for electric vehicle charging, and capacity building for truck operators. Several recent projects in Africa highlight the potential for such initiatives.  
 

Africa’s First Electric Bus Network

Recognising the potential to ‘leapfrog’ the transition through low-emissions heavy duty vehicles and move directly to zero-emissions electric buses, the city of Dakar, Senegal recently launched a fully electric bus rapid transport system capable of carrying 300,000 passengers per day, a first in the Africa region.  

With support financing by The World Bank and the European Investment Bank, the electric bus fleet was procured, and is operated by the private sector through a 15-year concession agreement signed in 2021. Overall private sector investment has amounted to USD $144 million, with an additional USD $22 million financed by the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). 

Investment by the government with credit from the World Bank previously supported Senegal in its efforts to formalise the bus system in Dakar since 2005. The city’s executive office for urban transport used part of this funding to address the role of informal transport systems, common to African countries. Informal operators participating in the project were incentivized to join the project by forming cooperatives which would be responsible for loan repayments for the new fleet. 

This agreement enabled the government to regulate public transport services and improve oversight and quality of services by removing older vehicles, developing specified routes and fares, and using ticketing slips.

Focusing on the highest emitting areas

Dakar’s electric BRT development parallels a key goal of the new Northern Corridor Green Freight Strategy 2030 (NCGFS 2030), prepared through the collaborative efforts of the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA), UNEP and the CCAC.  The Northern Corridor is a multimodal trade route linking the landlocked countries of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda to the Kenyan maritime seaport of Mombasa. It is one of the busiest corridors in the continent facilitating a daily road freight movement of about 75,000 tonnes, from an average daily truck traffic of between 2000 and 3000 trucks and a fleet size of around 12,500 trucks. 

The NCGFS 2030 aims to have the freight sector of the Northern Corridor region, to be electric vehicle-ready by 2030 and to be net-zero emissions by 2050. Even before vehicle and infrastructure upgrades however, capacity building projects to increase the skills of truck drivers has shown the potential to decrease fuel usage by 20%.  

Working with existing structures 

The experiences in Dakar and in the Northern Corridor share the common approach of working within existing social and economic contexts. Rather than seeking to replace existing infrastructure and transport networks, they identify ways to invest in improving existing practices and systems. This approach has also been applied in Kenya to increase uptake of electric vehicles.  

Supported by UNEP, Kenya’s Energy, Petroleum, and Regulatory Authority (EPRA) has used an energy subsidy incentive scheme to enable adoption of two and three-wheel electric vehicles to reduce the country’s transport emissions. The Government of Kenya aims to have 5% of all newly imported vehicles be fully electric by 2025. Kenya’s electric vehicle fleet now comprises over 3,700 registered units, nearly all of which are two- and three-wheelers. In support of the campaign, Kenya power announced that it would invest $2 million over three years to buy electric vehicles and build charging stations. The subsidy scheme has been accompanied by an awareness campaign on the health, social, and economic benefits of e-mobility. 

Linking Infrastructure and Climate Investment 

Current trends in investment in African infrastructure fall far short of what is needed. The Global Infrastructure Hub estimates that the investment gap is largest in the transport sector, which accounts for only 27% of all infrastructure investment while the global average totals 45%. This gap is particularly evident for rail, which accounts for only 3% of infrastructure investment versus 12% globally. 

The UN Economic Commission for Africa estimates that some 9,000 kilometers of rail lines will have to be built in order to fill existing gaps in the system. An expanded rail network could transport more than 50 times as much as today. The African Development Bank estimates that more than $100 billion will be neededfor rail infrastructure expansion. 

Linking climate benefits to transport infrastructure investment can attract international climate financing as an enhancing framework for transport-sector development in Africa. As these examples from Africa show, investments in high-emitting sectors can push forward the overall adoption of clean transport systems. The cost-benefit ratio of clean transport investments should incentivise international development financers through their opportunities to achieve outsized health, climate, and food security benefits.