African climate diplomats reject African Union’s pro-gas stance for Cop27

African local weather negotiators have quashed a proposal by the African Union to advertise gasoline as a bridge gasoline for the continent at UN talks.

The chief council of the African Union had proposed that African nations undertake a typical place on the Cop27 local weather summit on Africa’s power growth.

It known as on nations to “proceed to deploy all types of its ample power assets together with renewable and non-renewable power to handle power demand”. This might contain financing for gasoline, inexperienced and low-carbon hydrogen and nuclear power to “play an important function in increasing trendy power entry within the brief to medium time period”.

African Union officers offered the proposal to the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) throughout a three-day assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which ended on Thursday. They hoped local weather negotiators would undertake it because the group’s place on the subsequent UN local weather summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.

However local weather diplomats argued a pro-gas stance was too controversial and would distract from priorities like adaptation and local weather finance, sources near the dialogue informed Local weather Dwelling Information. That included representatives of the Egyptian presidency of Cop27.

Whereas negotiators in the end defer to political masters, it might now take a unprecedented intervention from African heads of state earlier than Cop27 to drive the place.

The AGN and the Cop27 presidency declined to touch upon the discussions.

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At the very least 10 African nations help gasoline as a “transition gasoline” and the Egyptian authorities has been in search of oil and gasoline offers.

Talking on the finish of the assembly, Egypt’s lead local weather negotiator Mohamed Nasr, stated that the Cop27 presidency’s work on the power transition in Africa targeted on power entry.

“Africa has the very best variety of folks with no entry to power: 600 million Africans do not need entry to power. After we talk about power and power transition, in our thoughts, it’s inexpensive power for Africans. We wish to work on numbers and a minimum of cut back this quantity by 50% within the coming 5 years,” he stated.

Jean-Paul Adams, director of the local weather change division on the UN Financial Fee for Africa, which hosted the assembly, informed Local weather Dwelling that many African nations don’t have entry to renewable sources akin to geothermal and hydropower that may present baseload technology.

“The frequent place shouldn’t be calling for a unbridled funding in gasoline, however it’s calling for a scientific method to accelerating power entry pushed by a transition to renewables, with readability on the mode of transition which might be nation particular,” he stated.

The technical paper behind the African Union proposal, dated June and seen by Local weather Dwelling, makes the case that below present funding patterns, about 570 million folks in Africa will stay with out entry to trendy power by 2030.

To plug the hole with out compromising financial growth, the African Union known as for openness to all sources of power, clear and soiled. “Africa will want an ‘power growth house’ to maintain tempo with its ambitions for common entry,” it reads.

An accompanying determine moots funding in oil and coal within the medium time period, with financing for gasoline, renewables, nuclear and inexperienced hydrogen into the long run.

The paper described the end result of the Cop26 local weather talks on phasing down coal energy, phasing out inefficient fossil gasoline subsidies and for nations to step up their 2030 local weather ambition this 12 months as “leav[ing] Africa in a deprived place to make use of particular power assets to speed up entry”.

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African civil society disagreed. They despatched local weather negotiators a 25-page memo calling the proposal “irreconcilable with success at Cop27” and urging them to deal with the continent’s “huge renewable power potential”.

Mohamed Adow, director of Energy Shift Africa, stated: “It could be a shameful betrayal of African folks, already on the entrance line of the local weather disaster, if African leaders use this November’s Cop27 local weather summit on African soil to lock Africa right into a fossil gasoline based mostly future.”

“What Africa doesn’t want is to be shackled with costly fossil gasoline infrastructure which might be out of date in a couple of years because the local weather disaster worsens,” he added.

A current briefing on the power transition in Africa by Local weather Motion Tracker argues that no new investments needs to be made into gasoline exploration and manufacturing, together with in Africa, if the Paris Settlement targets are to be met. Betting on growth methods that depend on gasoline dangers infrastructure being stranded and oil and gasoline exploration have usually been counterproductive to growth aims, it provides.

The civil society memo provides that the technical paper didn’t analyse “why present, largely centralised, largely fossil fuel-dependent, largely export-oriented power methods have didn’t ship power entry to lots of of thousands and thousands of extraordinary Africans”.

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One diplomat informed Local weather Dwelling that developed nations’ “envisaged backsliding on fossil gasoline” and rising curiosity in importing Africa’s untouched gasoline reserves “is making issues very tough”.

The EU is about to label some gasoline investments as “inexperienced” in its new taxonomy and European nations have been courting African gasoline producers to shore up their provides and change Russian imports.

In June, G7 leaders deemed that momentary gasoline investments abroad had been “crucial” to handle the power disaster.