The recent advocacy by the South Africa-based African Energy Chamber, AEC, for an end to energy colonialism in Africa and for the continent to make its independent choices on natural gas utilisation, is both rational and laudable.
Although the call came only on the heels of the global climate summit, COP27, which ended in Sharm-el Sheikh, Egypt, at the weekend, it is, nonetheless, a courageous pushback from a continent that has been at the receiving end of the devastating impacts of carbon emission by advanced industrialised countries.
As it is well known, Africa has, over the years, been unfairly accused and maligned by the global north to tactically deflect the indefensible historical culpability of Euro-American countries for global green house gas emission and its debilitating effects on the environment.
Hence, the AEC was right to argue that “we cannot expect African nations, which together emitted seven times less CO2 than China last year and four times less than the US, according to the Global Carbon Atlas, to undermine their best opportunities for economic development by simply aligning with the Western view of how to tackle carbon emissions”.
It is a fact that many African economic powers depend on natural gas as their primary source of income, and any attempt to dramatically alter the economic mainstay could lead to, or in fact exacerbate, socio-political dislocation and civil unrest across the continent.
Therefore, we cannot agree less with the AEC that “Africa’s natural gas sector will soon be responsible for large-scale job creation, increased opportunities for monetization and economic diversification, and critical gas-to-power initiatives that will bring more Africans reliable electricity”.
We support the argument that it doesn’t make sense for African countries to continue “to wait for foreign aid and handouts from their western counterparts,” and that instead, African countries with gas potential like Mozambique, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Libya, Algeria, South Africa and Angola should be free to monetise their gas”.
However, we urge African leaders to match actions with words and get serious with the challenge of economic diversification so as to explore other potentials that abound in the continent. Africa can only say no to colonialism when the continent is truly economically independent.
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