Africa Needs Natural Gas to Meet 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) Commitments (By NJ Ayuk)

  • Date: 24-May-2023
  • Source: Zawya
  • Sector:Oil & Gas
  • Country:Egypt
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Africa Needs Natural Gas to Meet 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) Commitments (By NJ Ayuk)

The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP27), held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022, featured a slight philosophical shift from where mindsets had been just the year before.

COP26 saw Africa under pressure to accept that its fossil fuel resources should remain underground. During the conference, representatives from wealthier nations made efforts to cast our continent as the recipient of undue climate change impacts deserving of financial compensation and the impetus to accelerate their own green agendas.

This year, the failure to deliver on those compensatory commitments, paired with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the subsequent effect on global energy prices, and a more unified voice of opposition from African leadership, managed to direct discussions toward another direction.

While some of the messaging shared at COP27 regarding Africa remained much the same as the previous year — that the focus should remain on moving away from reliance on coal and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies — the proposals supporting those sentiments showed a noticeable change. The conference more readily acknowledged both the economic benefits of leveraging African natural gas and the role that it could play in easing Africa’s eventual energy transition to