By Nneka Nwogwugwu
African nations are increasingly organizing a united front ahead of the COP27 summit, demanding more international support to adapt to the impacts of climate change, which, they note, has mostly been caused by emissions from high-income nations.
Vijaya Ramachandran, an energy expert at the Breakthrough Institute blamed Europe for setting plans for developing new energy sources and they are getting pushback from environmentalists.
She argues that the high-income-nation shareholders of the banks and the International Monetary Fund are making huge pushes for a climate agenda while sidelining the anti-poverty fight these institutions were created to tackle.
Even prior to the invasion of Ukraine and the recent push for new gas sources, Ramachandran had argued that high-income nations — which continue to benefit from their own investments in oil and gas — were making an error by banning use of their development funds for investments in fossil fuels in low-income countries.
The bans alone “will do little to propel growth of renewable energies across Africa. For one thing, the bans did not consider countries’ development needs, ” she added.
Higher-income countries should therefore allow for “tradeoffs” to ensure that African nations’ development is not stunted while also keeping in mind a green future, according to Kevin Urama, acting chief economist at the African Development Bank.
“Gas is central for the sustainability of the energy systems,” he said in an interview with Devex in July, calling it a “transition fuel.”
Africa, he said, needs to harness new, clean technologies, including solar, while also ensuring its fight against poverty does not take a back seat as it develops a new energy mix.
