Egypt will host COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh this November under the banner of championing Africa’s climate priorities.
Many developing countries will be looking to see if the summit finally delivers solutions to the long-standing issues that COP26 failed to resolve, such as the £100 billion-a-year climate finance promises never met by developed economies. The lack of attention given to how the world will adapt to a low-carbon future has also been criticized, especially when the limited capacity of developing nations to adapt is borne in mind, together with the developed world’s responsibility for current and historic carbon emissions.
Of particular focus will be climate justice in the move to ‘clean energy’, specifically the right of some African nations to use their fossil fuel reserves. Egypt says it aims to deliver a ‘COP for Africa’, yet the contentious and complex nature of exploiting Africa’s natural gas reserves may prevent a breakthrough – as might Egypt’s summit strategy that appears to favour its own position while putting other African countries at a disadvantage.
Africa is home to approximately 9 per cent of the world’s gas reserves and 6 per cent of global production – with countries such as Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt topping the list of gas producers. Yet 43 per cent of its population lacks access to electricity. The continent has the potential to increase the amount of gas it produces, but the required infrastructure could mean that carbon emissions are locked in for decades to come, in what some call ‘carbon bombs’. These projects will remain a large source of carbon throughout their lifetime.
‘Carbon bombs’ and the African energy transition
The risks of locking-in emissions cannot be overestimated. According to the most optimistic calculations, if all current climate pledges were implemented on time, the world would
remain on track for 2C of warming by the end of the century, with far worse impacts than if warming was curbed at 1.5C.
Developing countries are expected to be most affected, with a recent World Bank study noting that Africa will be hardest hit. Given the urgent need for a global energy move away from fossil fuels, new gas infrastructure projects in Africa risk becoming stranded assets, not least because of the relatively high cost and carbon footprint of such investments compared with other regions.
As a result, banks and development agencies are steering away from financing most of these projects. Yet Africa’s demand for energy is set to grow at almost three times the global rate by 2040 and its policymakers already view the lack of international finance for fossil fuel projects as a barrier to industrialization and development.
In May, these challenges prompted 10 African countries to issue the Kigali Communique calling for support ‘in the deployment of gas as a transition fuel’ and noting the continent’s ‘historically low emissions’. This demand for climate justice received a boost from the International Energy Agency (IEA) which estimated that Africa’s share of historical global emissions would rise by only 0.5 per cent even if it used all of its known gas reserves.
Mary Robinson, the former UN climate envoy, lent further support to the use of gas as a transition fuel, pointing to the 900 million Africans who use biomass and oil stoves for cooking, and for whom gas is a less polluting alternative.
Europe accused of hypocrisy
This difficult debate became more vexed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to IEA estimates, by 2030 African countries could supply a fifth of the natural gas Russia supplied to Europe in 2021. When some European countries rushed to secure natural gas sources to replace Russian imports, African officials accused them of hypocrisy, citing previous European demands for the Global South to leave their fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
As Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s vice president, recently tweeted, Europe has had plenty of help with its energy crisis: ‘In stark contrast, the developing world is still being held to account for its emission reduction without adequate support for its energy transition.’
The ability of African nations to achieve results at COP27 is further hampered by the climate summit’s agenda and priorities, and especially the role of Egypt. Holding this year’s COP presidency, Egypt has already played an important role in shelving a number of demands by other African countries.
In August, the African Union proposed a common continental position on energy access to be tabled at COP27 that called on support for using renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Egypt blocked this on the basis that a pro-gas stance would be ‘too controversial’, despite Egypt itself being a major gas producer. Egypt also opposed a call to elevate the issue of loss-and-damage compensation for the effects of climate change at the summit.
Additionally, while Egypt’s prioritization of implementing existing climate pledges appears to support the need of African countries for financial and technical support, its project-led approach to climate finance and its focus on signing project deals during the summit do not.
Egypt already has a string of green-energy and green-hydrogen projects that are ready to receive finance. Yet most of its sub-Saharan neighbours are lagging behind in developing green projects, and as a result are likely to miss out on the benefits from this approach.
If COP27 is to speak for Africa, its presidency must increase its engagement with African capitals and develop a common position at this summit that will provide the pressure needed to deliver benefits for the whole continent.