DAKAR (Reuters) – Plans by some nations to end the financing of gas exploration will prove a “fatal cost” for several emerging African economies, Senegal President Macky Sall said at the start of theChina-Africa Summit in Dakar on Monday.
Senegal, like several other African countries, is sitting on billions of cubic metres of gas reserves and is expected to become a major gas producer in the region which will not only boost power supply but potentially spur double-digit economic growth from 2023.
“A few days after the end of COP26, I must also draw the attention to the decision taken by certain countries to stop foreign financing of fossil fuels, including the gas sector, even as the use of other more polluting energy sources continues,” Sall told the summit, referring to this month’s climate conference in Glasgow.
“At a time when several African countries are preparing to exploit their significant gas resources, the end of funding for the gas sector, under the pretext that gas is a fossil energy, would bear a fatal cost to our emerging economies,” Sall said.
He urged African countries to work together to maintain financing for gas as a transitional energy, adding that blocking funding will add to the climate injustice Africa is already suffering.
(Reporting by Bate Felix and Edward McAllister; Editing by Toby Chopra and Nick Macfie)
