The global fight against climate change has provoked a fierce debate over the development of new oil and gas projects in poorer nations.
Should these countries be allowed to use fossil-fuel power plants to improve their energy provision and drive economic growth, given they have contributed so little to carbon emissions historically? Or must they cut emissions as much as the long-industrialised, most polluting states?
Nowhere is this argument more vigorously contested than in Africa, where the continent’s 1.4bn people are the most exposed to the effects of the climate crisis, yet 43 per cent of them — approximately 600mn— still lack access to electricity.