West's thirst for African gas raises alarm

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Wealthy Western nations facing an energy crunch are eyeing natural gas in Africa at the expense of supporting a green transition in poorer countries, climate activists at COP27 charge.

European countries have been scrambling for alternative sources of gas after the continent's former top supplier, Russia, slashed exports in retaliation for Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine in February.

Gas-rich Norway has since overtaken Russia as a leading supplier, but Europe sees great potential in African fossil fuel reserves, including promising oil and gas discoveries in Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Europe wants "to turn Africa into its gas station", Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, said at the UN climate summit in Egypt.

"We don't have to follow the footsteps of the rich world that actually caused climate change in the first place," Adow said.

Exporting natural gas may bring short-term profits but exacerbate the climate crisis and leave African nations worse off in the long run, activists, researchers and advocacy groups said.

'Serious threat'

Research group Climate Action Tracker called the global dash for gas a "serious threat" to the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming well below 2 C, and preferably at 1.5 C, compared with preindustrial levels.

Some African leaders argued that the potential benefits for people on the world's poorest continent outweighed the harm from the production and export of fossil fuels.

"We are in favor of a just and fair green transition, instead of decisions that harm our development process," Senegalese President Macky Sall told some 100 world leaders last week at COP27.

Germany, the European country most dependent on Russian supplies before the conflict, has been keen to tap Senegal's gas deposits.

Omar Farouk Ibrahim, secretary-general of the African Petroleum Producers' Organization, said the slight increase in the continent's marginal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions "would make a fundamental difference in whether people live or die".

"History shows us that… extraction in African countries has not resulted in development," said Thuli Makama, African program director at Oil Change International.

Agencies via Xinhua