Climate activists are enraged that African leaders want to invest in fossil fuels

When the EU voted last month to classify natural gas as ‘green energy,’ it opened a window that Africa has been waiting for: access to low-cost funds to run energy projects that do not rely on solar, wind nor geothermal.

During a press call at the US-Africa summit in Morocco last month, Adesina Akinwumi, the president of the African Development Bank said that “no part of the world ever developed using renewable energy alone.

...“It’s ironic that the continent with the highest renewable energy potential and [the one] hit hardest by the impacts of the climate crisis is the one willing to go down the dirty, risky fossil fuel path,” Mohamed Adow, the director of Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, told Quartz.

This compromise is not worth making for the perceived short-term gains of gas, Adow said. Instead, Africa should put the needs of its people first by developing clean and decentralized energy systems for domestic use. said. “Going the gas way is too high a price to pay, as it will leave us in debt and the pollution will affect our people’s health,” he said.