Nearly 200 countries at last year’s summit in Glasgow, Scotland, agreed to strengthen climate pledges

But for Osvaldo Abreu, minister of infrastructure and Natural Resources of Sao Tome and Principe, his attendance left him dreading his poor island nation would never see revenues from untapped oil and gas prospects.

“What we’re asking from the big economies is to look at our conditions: we would be prepared in the final case to stop exploration if we got the minimum financial support we need.

Wealthy nations disappointed many in Glasgow by saying they would not deliver the $100 billion per year promised from 2020 until 2023 to help developing countries with their energy transition and with adapting to a warming world.

“We need this oil … and what we need is for them to keep their promises, because we have seen nothing so far,” he added.

Egypt, a natural gas exporter, takes over the presidency of the U.N. climate talks from Britain and hosts the COP27 summit Nov. 7-18 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

“The COP27 session is going to be a different flavour,” said Ayman Soliman, CEO of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, adding the conference will focus on agreements to finance fuel and power projects especially climate-friendly ones like its plan to ramp up green ammonia for shipping in the Suez Canal. 

“We want to do projects and to unlock financing … we’ve been trying to speak the language of the rest of the world but now the world needs to look at us and speak our language.”