The African Union (AU) hopes to officially join the Group of 20 (G20) nations this month, giving the continent another seat at the table with some of the world’s biggest polluters as it grapples with the fallout from global warming.
The continental group aims to use the opportunity to call on rich nations to fulfill their pledges to tackle climate change, including providing developing countries with $100 billion in funding each year, he said. Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, who holds the rotating presidency of the AU. G20 nations are responsible for 80% of global emissions, while Africa accounts for less than 4%.
“Promises have not been kept,” Sall said in an interview at the COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. “There have been some efforts, but they have been below our expectations.” When the AU “joins the G20, we will be able to talk regularly with our partners,” he said.
South Africa is currently the only African member of the G20, which will hold its summit in Bali later this month, and Sall hopes the AU’s G20 membership will be approved at that meeting. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, he lamented Africa’s exclusion from groups such as the G20 and the Security Council, saying the continent should be represented in forums whose decisions they affected the lives of its 1.4 billion people.
Several African leaders have said they want to tap their fossil fuel reserves to boost growth and supply energy.
Senegal is pushing ahead with plans to develop its liquefied natural gas industry: it intends to use the fuel to generate electricity and export some of its output to Europe and other markets, allowing it to generate much-needed foreign exchange .
The West African nation’s economy will expand further into sub-Saharan Africa next year when it begins producing gas from the BP-backed Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field, International Monetary Fund projections show.
“If we want to be fair to Africa, we must not block African projects, as the goal is to develop our countries,” Sall said. “The majority of our population does not have access to electricity.”
The GTA project, straddling the border between Senegal and Mauritania, is set to begin production in the third quarter of 2023. A second phase could begin as early as 2024, but will require about $5 billion in financing that may be difficult to come by given the growing antipathy towards fossil fuel projects.
Senegal is also among a handful of developing countries negotiating a financing package funded by rich nations to help it transition to cleaner forms of fuel. It expects to secure an agreement based on a South Africa reached with the US, the European Union, the UK, France, Germany and various institutions to access $8.5 billion, mainly in the form of loans.
Germany and France are among potential sponsors of renewable energy projects in Senegal, Sall told the COP27 meeting. It echoed calls made by the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa so that more grants are available to finance green energy and counter climate change.
“It is paradoxical that African countries depend on debt to finance adaptation projects,” Sall said in the interview. “If Africa is going to increase debt to reduce greenhouse emissions, there is a problem.”
