Saint-Louis, Senegal (October 17, 2022-AFP) The new offshore gas terminal appears through the morning mist cloaking the Atlantic Ocean near Saint Louis, where Senegal meets Mauritania.
It has been hailed as a new economic beginning in developing Africa and condemned as a new source of pollution in a world suffocating from global warming.
Senegal, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, has discovered oil and gas reserves, raising hopes of future riches and industrialization they have no intention of yielding to appeals to leave lucrative oil and gas in the ground in order to fight climate change.
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Senegal President- Macky Sall says that it would be “an injustice” and he has launched a diplomatic counter-offensive to justify extracting the resources, starting next year.
“Not being the greatest polluters since we are not industrialized, they would be unfair in the search for a solution (to global warming) to ban Africa from using the natural resources which are underground,” Sall told visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in May.
Niger, the world’s poorest country according to the UN’s Human Development Index, is also building Africa’s longest oil pipeline — a nearly 2,000-kilometre (1,250-mile) link to Benin that will enable it to export crude from as early as next year.
As the launch of gas production draws closer, the authorities are stepping up their control over the offshore platform.
Greenpeace Africa’s ocean campaign manager Aliou Ba stressed that exploiting fossil fuel deposits will further “exacerbate” the climate crisis, with efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius looking increasingly forlorn.
Francois Gemenne, an expert with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: “When you are poor it is very difficult to give up on treasure, so something more interesting has to be on offer.
The pre-COP27 talks held in Kinshasa at the start of October heard calls for alternative technologies and major financing to sustain a green transition.
But the government of the vast, rainforest-covered DRC is standing by its right to exploit petrol and gas, despite criticism from environmental groups warning against the release of huge quantities of carbon.
At the pre-COP gathering, Congolese Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde pointed out that some European nations have returned to burning highly polluting coal due to gas shortages triggered by the Russian invasion.
He warned against “discrimination”, “with certain states free to carry on or even increase their emissions, and others prevented from exploiting their natural resources”.
DRC senior climate negotiator Tosi Mpanu Mpanu sees a positive outcome. “Paradoxically, it’s the oil money that is seen as dirty which will allow us to have sufficient means to take back our environmental sovereignty and reduce emissions caused by deforestation,” he said.
Senegal’s oil and gas discoveries account for only 0.07 per cent and 0.5 respectively of world reserves.
Senegal has discovered oil and gas reserves, raising hopes of future riches and industrialization. But Energy and Oil Minister Sophie Gladima said “they are important enough to radically change the economy and industrial fabric of our country and thereby its future prospects.”
