The European Commission has outlined its criteria for supporting gas investments in Africa, moving to head off a potential conflict at a leaders’ summit next month.
The European Union considers gas “a bridge to climate neutrality, but only if it makes sense,” said Frans Timmermans, the commission’s executive vice president responsible for climate policy, in prerecorded comments delivered during a webinar Thursday. “When is that the case? If there is no other option, if it replaces coal, and if the investments made are hydrogen-ready — because clean gases are the real answer for our future energy needs.”
Draft documents reveal EU plan for summit with African Union
Brussels has six "key deliverables" for the meeting, with officials still working to pull together the final funding commitments from EU states.
The heads of EU institutions have made no secret of their desire to use their 2021-2027 budget to champion renewable energy in African economies. The March 2020 commission policy for Africa mentions “green” 19 times in 18 pages.
However, critics have warned about “colonialism in green,” as Vijaya Ramachandran, the director for energy and development at The Breakthrough Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy in November.
Pointing out that sub-Saharan Africa has large offshore gas fields, Ramachandran wrote that cutting off donor financing for gas projects “would practically end support for the critical energy infrastructure necessary to support economic development and raise living standards.” Of the 800 million people worldwide without access to electricity, roughly 600 million are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Researchers are not the only ones raising the alarm. Last month, European Council President Charles Michel hosted a preparatory meeting ahead of the sixth summit of EU and African Union leaders, set for Feb. 17-18 in Brussels. One diplomat present told Devex that Senegalese President Macky Sall insisted there that not all of Africa’s energy needs could be met with investments in renewables.
The main investment package to be unveiled at the February summit includes an “Africa-EU Green Energy Initiative” focused on “[increasing] renewable energy capacity and share in the energy mix crowding out fossil fuels,” according to an unfinished draft seen by Devex in December.
The debate was highlighted this month as the commission began consultations on its draft sustainable finance taxonomy in Europe, under which gas and nuclear power could qualify as green energy sources.
That prompted cautious optimism from Ramachandran that Africa would be allowed to benefit from natural gas investments as a transition fuel too, though she warned that the EU may still oppose financing for similar projects in Africa through multilateral development banks.
A commission spokesperson told Devex in mid-2021 that the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy is intended to help investors identify sustainable investment opportunities in Europe and that it “is not meant as an instrument of development policy.”
Thursday’s webinar, hosted by the Africa-Europe Foundation think tank, was a chance for the EU side to state its position more clearly and to air concerns ahead of — rather than during — the February summit.
Sall reiterated during the webinar that Africa’s carbon emissions are dwarfed by those of wealthy countries, which have assured their economic development on the basis of coal, nuclear power, and now gas. Wind, solar, and hydroelectric power were all useful innovations, he added, “but Africa must have an energy base which assures its economic development.”
Update, Jan. 24, 2022: This article has been updated to clarify the host of the webinar.
About the author
Vince Chadwickvchadw
Vince Chadwick is a contributing reporter at Devex. A law graduate from Melbourne, Australia, he was social affairs reporter for The Age newspaper, before covering breaking news, the arts, and public policy across Europe, including as a reporter and editor at POLITICO Europe. He was long-listed for International Journalist of the Year at the 2023 One World Media Awards.
