Christiana Figueres and Vanessa Nakate on gas in Senegal

Christiana Figueres and Vanessa Nakate on gas in Senegal


IIn his speech at the COP27 world climate conference, Chancellor Scholz renewed Germany’s commitment to the climate targets. He promised that there would be no renaissance in fossil fuels with him and asserted that “the future belongs to wind power, solar energy and green hydrogen”. But does this vision also apply to Africa?

Christiana Figueres was Secretary General of the UN Climate Change Secretariat from 2010 to 2016 and led the negotiations to conclude the Paris Climate Agreement.


Christiana Figueres was Secretary General of the UN Climate Change Secretariat from 2010 to 2016 and led the negotiations to conclude the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Image: dpa

Vanessa Nakate is one of Africa's best-known climate activists and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.


Vanessa Nakate is one of Africa’s best-known climate activists and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
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Image: AFP

Last year, the federal government pledged to end public funding for fossil energy projects abroad. But Germany’s chance of being a climate pioneer has since been shaken by efforts to fund new gas fields in Senegal, as well as the deal just announced at COP27 to support future Egyptian gas exports to Europe. With this, Germany is breaking its central promise. Financing new gas infrastructure is not in the public interest, either in Africa or in Europe. Because the earth’s atmosphere knows no boundaries. Investments in the expansion of fossil energies, no matter where, are no longer justifiable.

These are undoubtedly tough times that require tough decisions. In Europe, the cost of living continues to rise. Governments are under pressure to guarantee energy security and keep prices low. However, none of this is an excuse to break promises and delay climate action. Famine persists in the Horn of Africa, and record floods have wreaked havoc in Nigeria. Now is the time for political leadership that moves forward resolutely, combining security and justice. Gas and other fossil fuels are the biggest polluters of the last century. Binding African countries and European finance to an energy system based on natural gas ties us to a past that we must leave behind.

First, investments in new gas infrastructure are uneconomical. The industry is already in decline: the International Energy Agency has just declared that the gas age is coming to an end. As investors and lawmakers distance themselves from fossil fuels, expanding gas production would burden African countries with infrastructure that, once built, is already obsolete, adding to the debt burden. Africa would become a junkyard for the dying industries of the past.

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