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In Africa, switching to renewable energy sources with low carbon emissions is becoming more popular. In the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS), the low-carbon energy transition must overcome significant obstacles, including those posed by policies put in place and their implementation. In order to replace the current fossil fuel-driven economy with low-carbon development that also advances the regional aims and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper analyzes the current policy landscape in the region. A total of 75 policies from four categories (energy access, energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change) were chosen for the policy review. Multicriteria decision analysis and a thorough review of the literature have shed light on how well the policies of the ECOWAS countries could promote low-carbon development and what the main challenges to overcome are. The last step was the comparison of the progress of the two key policies in the region: the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) and National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP). The results illustrate the amount of work still needing to be done in the region, with only 26 of the 75 policies receiving a score above 50. However, the prospect of a better energy strategy that adequately considers the difficulties of the energy transition is possible, given the progress made by the region's nations since the creation of national action plans for energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE). Our analysis has also shown that countries like Senegal have obtained quite promising results, as evidenced by the best scores of 76.88 and 73.25, respectively, obtained by its NREAP and NEEAP policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, we recognize the valuable previous studies which model renewable energy growth with complete termination of fossil fuels along with assumptions of the remaining carbon budgets to reach IPCC warming targets. However, these studies use very complex combined economic/physical modeling and commonly lack transparency regarding the sensitivity to assumed inputs. Moreover, it is not clear that energy poverty with its big present impact in the global South has been eliminated in their scenarios. Further, their CO2-equivalent natural gas emission factors are underestimated, which will have significant impact on the computed greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, we address this question in a transparent modeling study: can the 1.5 °C warming target still be met with an aggressive phaseout of fossil fuels coupled with a 100% replacement by renewable energy? We compute the continuous generation of global wind/solar energy power along with the cumulative carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in a complete phaseout of fossil fuels over a 20 year period. We compare these computed emissions with the state-of-the-science estimates for the remaining carbon budget of carbon dioxide emissions consistent with the 1.5 °C warming target, concluding that it is still possible to meet this warming target if the creation of a global 100% renewable energy transition of sufficient capacity begins very soon which will likely be needed to power aggressive negative carbon emission technology. The latter is focused on direct air capture for crustal storage. More efficient renewable technologies in the near future will make this transition easier and promote the implementation of a global circular economy. Taking into account technological improvements in 2nd law (exergy) efficiencies reducing the necessary global energy demand, the renewable supply should likely be no more than 1.5 times the present level, with the capacity to eliminate global energy poverty, for climate mitigation and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]