In November, world leaders, environmental campaigners and climate experts will descend on the lovely city of Sharm El Sheik in Egypt to attend the global climate conference known as COP 27. COP stands for Conference of the Parties, a term of art used in International Law to refer to parties to a treaty.

In June 1992, World leaders converged at the Earth Summit held in Rio De Janeiro and signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The treaty came into effect in 1994. World Leaders agreed to hold regular meetings on climate change, discuss and agree on sustainable development. As a result of this agreement, world leaders began to meet regularly to discuss climate change and approach the problem in a global manner. In 1997, the Conference of the Parties (COP) met in Japan and signed the Kyoto Protocol where state parties agreed that man made global warming was happening and that human made carbon dioxide emissions were the driving force behind global warming. Countries then agreed to reduce greenhouse emissions. Every year since ‘97, there is a climate conference chaired by a particular country. The one in Egypt will be the 27th conference hence COP 27.

COP 15 was held in Paris resulting in the Paris Climate Agreement where countries undertook to limit global warming and ensure global temperatures do not rise by 1.5 degrees. They also undertook commitments to reach net zero in their carbon emissions. Rich countries pledged in 2015 to pay US$100bn per year to poor countries to mitigate climate change effects. The money hasn’t reached Africa and, in my view, no one should hold their breath waiting for it.

There are those who argue that in order to meet the climate targets we must ensure that we have no new oil and gas projects. Just this week the Guardian Newspaper in London claimed there was a “growing scientific consensus” that if we are to meet our global targets there must be no new fossil fuel projects. This is also the stated position of the International Energy Agency. The argument is that we must maintain the status quo. In other words the climate is safe as long as the US continues to produce its 13 million barrels of oil but the climate is doomed if Uganda produces 200,000 barrels of oil. The world is safe as long as Norway produces 2 million barrels but the day Uganda adds 200,000 barrels then Uganda is delivering a “climate bomb.”

In practice what we have seen is that the failure to develop oil and gas resources has led to an increase in oil prices making oil producers wealthier. President Biden famously said US oil major ExxonMobil has “more money than God”.

The underlying philosophy of the crowd that argues against new oil projects  is; “to him who has more shall be given to him but to him who does not have, even the little he has shall be taken away.”

There is no doubt that Africa must have an energy transition. However, it must be a just transition. As African leaders prepare to go to Egypt they must be firm and unapologetic while rejecting fanciful theories that only have the effect of keeping Africans poorer. We now know that countries value their energy security more than they do any climate commitments made. We know this because after the last COP in Glasgow the US opened federal lands for oil drilling, the UK issued 100 oil licenses in the North Sea, Germany returned to coal, Norway began drilling in arctic and issued 53 new licenses, the EU Commission began funding pipelines and Canada lifted sanctions on Russia to enable it repair pipelines in the middle of the sea. We all know that the higher energy prices had a deeper impact on Africans with already expensive fuel going up 100% and inflation skyrocketing. High energy prices hit the poorest the hardest.

The African position at COP 27 must be unified and strong. We must have a just energy transition and reject any suggestion of transitioning from darkness to deeper darkness “in a night already devoid of stars.”