African countries are expected to use the COP27 climate talks in Egypt next month to advocate for a common energy position that sees fossil fuels as necessary to expanding economies and electricity access, the continent’s top energy official said on Tuesday.
The African position, criticized by environmental groups, could overshadow global climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh seeking to build on the previous Glasgow, Scotland, summit and make good on financing targets by rich nations to poorer countries that have fallen far short of the promised US$100 billion a year by 2020.
“We recognize that some countries may have to use fossil fuels for now, but it’s not one solution fits all,” African Union (AU) Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy Amani Abou-Zeid said.
Photo: REUTERS
“It is not time to exclude, but it is the time to tailor solutions for a context,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference in South Africa.
An AU technical study attended by 45 African countries on June 16 seen by Reuters outlined that oil and coal would play a “crucial role” in expanding modern energy access over the short to medium term.
In tandem with renewable sources, Africa also sees key roles for natural gas and nuclear energy.
“Our ambition is to have fast-growing economies, competitive and industrialized,” Abou-Zeid said.
Seen as a renewables hub given its vast solar, wind and hydrogen potential, Africa also has about 600 million people in its sub-Saharan region living without electricity and almost 1 billion people without access to clean energy for cooking.
However, critics say that in African countries with large fossil fuel reserves, proceeds have mostly been used to feather the nests of corrupt political elites and have not helped alleviate general poverty or energy poverty.
In Angola and Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil producers for decades, access to electricity for the population was just 40 percent and 57 percent respectively last year, the World Bank said.
Top producer Nigeria has the world’s largest energy access deficit, it added.
Fast-growing Africa produces less than 4 percent of total global emissions, and is looking to monetize new gas and oil finds, some of the largest this decade, to help plug European demand after major supplier Russia invaded Ukraine and subsequently turned off gas supplies to EU economies.
“Africa has woken up and we are going to exploit our natural resources,” Ugandan Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu said.
“There is no way you can develop any economy, any society without energy,” African Petroleum Producers’ Organization secretary-general Omar Farouk Ibrahim said. “We are talking about coal, we are talking oil and we are talking about gas. At this time we are not discriminating.”
Outside the conference venue at the Cape Town International Convention Center, a handful of Extinction Rebellion members poured a reddish, oily mixture over their heads to protest.
“We believe the fossil fuel industry is killing us,” group spokeswoman Judy Scott-Goldman told reporters.
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