Will the ‘gas rush’ benefit Africa? At COP27, activists are in doubt.
The “gas rush” of Western powers plunged into the midst of an energy crisis represents a false promise for Africa’s development, worry activists and experts at COP27, who see the future on the side of renewables.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine unleashed a storm on the energy markets and pushed the countries of the North, particularly Europe, to secure at all costs strategic supplies for their economy.
Europeans are therefore eyeing African countries, which intend, for some, to take advantage of this new race.
Senegal or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, have recently discovered oil and gas resources that fuel hopes of wealth. Mozambique is trying to develop a giant liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, delayed for security reasons.
“Europe wants to make Africa its service station”, deplores Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, who worries about these prospects, like many African activists at the COP on climate, which is being held this year on this continent, in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
“But we don’t need to follow the example of rich countries that actually caused climate change,” he argues.
For the NGO Climate Action Tracker, the global race for gas represents a “serious threat” to the objectives of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C and if possible to +1 .5°C by the year 2100 compared to the pre-industrial era.
In Africa, projects also pose risks to valuable ecosystems, for example in the Congo Basin.
– “Life or death” – But some African leaders do not intend to give up a potential windfall. “We are for a fair and equitable green transition instead of decisions that are detrimental to our development process”, launched at the podium of COP27 Macky Sall, President of Senegal, whose reservations are coveted by a Germany which struggling to wean off Russian gas.
“We have 600 million people in Africa who have no access to electricity at all. More than 900 million do not have access to modern energy for cooking or heating”, recalls Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary General of the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO).
A marginal increase in emissions from Africa – which has contributed almost nothing to climate change – “would make a fundamental difference to the life or death of people in Africa”, argues the Nigerian.
“History shows that extraction in African countries has not translated into development” or “access to energy for people,” counters Thuli Makama of Oil Change International.
– ‘Green leader’ – Western thirst caused by war in Ukraine will be ‘very short term’ and African countries that have invested in new capabilities will be left with ‘stranded assets, clean-up costs and all the devastation that comes with it’ this industry”, judges the lawyer and activist from Eswatini.
This notion of “stranded” assets refers to products that lose all value. Some economists believe that hydrocarbons will quickly be marginalized by clean energies, leading to their devaluation.
A danger pointed out by a Carbon Tracker report published on Monday. Fossil prices will eventually fall and Western investments will evaporate, write the authors, urging African countries to bet on solar instead.
“To help us tackle the challenge of our energy poverty, we must exploit the incredible potential in renewable energies that exists in Africa”, proposes Mohamed Adow.
The continent could thus follow a development path different from that of the West and “skip” the stage of fossils, as it went directly to mobile telephony. Africa can become “a green leader”, believes the Kenyan expert and activist.
The room for improvement is immense: Africa only captured 0.6% of investments for renewables in the world last year, according to a study by BloombergNEF (BNEF), but it has enormous potential, especially for solar.
According to Carbon Tracker, the continent could jump from 14 gigawatts of solar capacity to more than 400 GW by 2050, with costs continuing to fall.
