Next Africa: Oil resource curse clouds climate change debate
As the next COP climate summit approaches, African nations from Senegal to South Africa are clamoring for the right to develop fossil fuel assets — but the world’s richest nations are urging them to put environmental concerns first.
African leaders have a point. Developed economies have historically contributed almost all the greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet.
Africa produces less than 4%, while about half the continent’s inhabitants are without electricity.
“An important item at COP is recognizing Africa’s special needs and circumstances,” said Ephraim Mwepya Shitiya, the chairman of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change.
But while those points will be debated at next month’s meeting in Egypt, African nations also need to look at their track record.
Nigeria is, most of the time, Africa’s biggest oil producer. Yet its inhabitants largely have to find their own power by installing diesel generators.
Angola, Nigeria’s closest crude-making rival, has had its own economic problems and Ghana is struggling to manage its finances.
Another example of the oil curse is Gabon, which has the second-highest per-capita income of any nation on the African mainland.
Yet outside its cities there’s little evidence of the government’s presence. Roads are untarred and clinics are either poorly stocked or closed.
National leaders may be better advised to heed Kenyan President William Ruto’s call for them to avoid “trudging in the fossil-fuel footsteps of those who went before.”
Alternatively, they could find ways to use the revenue fossil fuels earn more productively.
