The conflict is always escalating between African and developed countries, especially in terms of global responsibility toward shared issues. It seems that controversy has started up again after the approval of the “United Arab Emirates Consensus”, which calls on the signed parties to take actions, including “the just transition from fossil fuels in energy ecosystems to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 in line with scientific standards”.

While the African Energy Chamber is stressing that the world should take into considerationthat African countries can’t follow the same timetable of energy transition as developed countries do today, Africa is at a different stage of development and still struggling with energy poverty and the manufacturing crisis.

The Chamber sees that Africa isn’t supposed to be seen as the cause of the crisis when it comes to carbon emissions. This can be proved by numbers: in 2021, global carbon dioxide emissions will have reached 37,12. China ranked first with 11,47 billion tons, while all African countries contributed 1,45 billion tonsor just 4% of the global carbon emissions.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of emissions in Africa didn’t exceed 4%, which is the minimum level of emissions on all continents.

The chamber also indicated that the average emissions of each African are 1 ton of carbon dioxide “annually”. On the other hand, American citizen contributes the same amount of carbon dioxide “monthly”. However, Africa is being blamed for the emissions crisis to the same extent as the Western economies.

Advanced countries insist on total equality of responsibility, but African sources maintain that justice does not rest in blind equality but rather in extrapolating current reality, comprehending African reality and history, and contrasting it with developed countries’ reality and history. This is the content of the UAE consensus, which African countries question.

On the European side, Fiona Harvey and Matthew Taylor urged, in an article for The Guardian, the black continent to adopt renewables and to shift away from exploring profitable gas deposits to avoid the climate crisis.

In theory, the African Energy Chamber concurred with this viewpoint. It emphasized that oil-and gas-producing countries should do their part to limit harmful emissions and seriously consider the hazards associated with climate change. It also highlighted a sovereign concept, namely that Africa has the right to decide when to stop exploring for and producing oil and gas, and the world has no right to dictate that time.

It also stressed its conviction that when managing gas strategically and scientifically, paves the road to economic growth, which will help Africa achieve its climate targets. It added that its message to COP28 is that African countries have the right to determine the suitable time to transition to clean energy and the ways to achieve that. It is a right that African countries will not abandon.

It said that instead of Western pressure to stop gas and oil activities, the developed countries should make more effort in Africa to build partnerships and relations based on mutual respect and continuous communication to advance Africa and push it forward for a better environment and world.