Africa must forgo gas exploration to avert climate disaster, warn experts

theguardian.com:

Africa must embrace renewable energy, and forgo exploration of its potentially lucrative gas deposits to stave off climate disaster and bring access to clean energy to the hundreds of millions who lack it, leading experts on the continent have said.

Their call came as the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned that exploring for gas and oil anywhere in the world would be “delusional”.

Several African leaders are considering pushing for new investment in exploration as gas prices around the world soar. Some European countries are also eager to provide such investment to replace supplies from Russia.

Last week, Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland, UN commissioner for human rights and UN climate envoy, stoked controversy when she backed an expansion, saying African countries should exploit their gas reserves.

She said the gas should be used within the continent for clean cooking and power generation for the 600 million people who lacked access to power and the 900 million who were cooking on biomass or dirty oil, rather than exported for profit.

Mohamed Adow, the director of the Power Shift Africa thinktank and 2020 winner of the Climate Breakthrough prize, said Robinson was wrong.

“For Africans to achieve the lives of dignity that energy access should bring, we cannot rely on the failed system of the last 200 years. We must leapfrog our thinking and make the investment into distributed renewable energy systems that won’t poison our rivers, pollute our air, choke our lungs and profit only a few,” he told the Guardian.

Making a distinction between voices from the west and those from Africa, he said: “Climate justice champions who actually live in Africa are very clear that we want access to energy for everyone –