Can Africa Transcend Optimization of Natural Resources in the Post-COP28 Era?

COP28 concluded with an agreement that signalled "the beginning of the end" of the fossil fuel era. The conference marked a major turning point by outlining a climate and energy just path to the future through reduced emissions and increased funding. Its most notable achievement to date has been conducting the first global stocktake. It has also been effective in bringing adaptation from the margins of climate negotiations to the forefront of national dialogues concerning climate risk. Cop28 was significant because it represented the first serious attempt to incorporate the phase-down of fossil fuels in global climate negotiations while laying the groundwork for the operationalization of the carbon market.

However, just one month after COP28, the Republic of Congo approved oil exploration in Conkouati-Douli National Park, signing a $50 million conservation agreement with donors. Conkouati was established in 1999 by presidential decree, which prohibited, among other things, oil exploration and exploitation in the park and surrounding area. But in a new twist, the Congo Council of Ministers granted a permit to China Oil Natural Gas Overseas Holding United on January 18. This has not gone down with many stakeholders. GreenPeace claims that the decision is just another embarrassment for donors who greenwash the Sassou regime at the expense of European taxpayers while claiming to protect Congo's forests and biodiversity. Additionally, it is a blow to their erroneous "fortress conservation" philosophy.

Dr Fabrice Lamfu Yengong of Greenpeace is of the view that "While the Global North continues to back armed ecoguards in Congo and elsewhere notorious for violence against local people on ancestral lands, its love of nature stops short of criticizing oil, logging and mining multinationals." There have been doubts raised about the morality of other major international powers. The story of the looting of Congo is not over yet. The looting of Conkouati is partly Norway's fault as well. The Norwegian-led Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) signed a $65 million Letter of Intent with Congo in 2019, stating that the initiative would only "minimize the impact" of mining and oil on forests, omitting any mention of Norway's interests in the oil sector of Congo. Meanwhile, Norwegian company Petronor is conducting record-breaking business offshore.

Drill, baby, drill model

It appears that John Hayward's assertion still holds some truth. In 2015, Hayward presciently stated, "To the fossil fuel incumbents, the new normal look a lot like the old one. Hold your hats (if you can); there will be many more holes drilled and mines dug before the curtain goes down on this act." Today, tt has become apparent that while the game's name has changed, the operations and drilling activities have remained the same. For example, Rystad Energy has determined that 36 possible high-impact wells should be spud or drilled in 2024. It may be of interest to note that thirteen of the thirty-six potentially important wells worldwide are located in Africa, and ten are located in Latin America.  According to Rystad, major oil and gas companies such as BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies typically dominate high-impact well drilling. This trend is expected to continue into 2024. Fortunately, or unfortunately, approximately 70% of all wells drilled in Africa will be in new plays or frontier and emerging basins. It was also reported that significant frontier wells are found in the Namibe Basin off Angola, the Angoche Basin off Mozambique, and the Red Sea off Egypt. This shows that there is no reduction in natural resource exploitation, which will add to the carbon intensity of these economies.

Disillusion of Divestment  

In Nigeria, the Federal Government does not fully support the COP28 divestment agenda. On Tuesday, Nigeria informed Western countries in America and Europe that it would not halt its fossil fuel exploration efforts, despite increasing pressure from the West. The reason he gave for this is that some European and American nations have been investing in fossil fuels but have turned to requesting that Africa halt its ongoing exploration of crude oil on the continent. According to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, the Federal Government is making a serious effort to stop international oil companies from fully withdrawing from Nigeria. He added, "America is the world's largest producer of oil; they want us to stop producing, but we are increasing production." Recall that the United Kingdom also granted roughly 100 licenses for oil exploration last year, under the leadership of the current prime minister. He went on, "This indicates that while exploration in the West is not slowing down, we are being asked to reduce or cease investing in fossil fuels. The minister further noted that Norway and many other countries in the West are still investing in fossil fuel exploration, but they have been urging African countries to halt production.

Africa, what comes next?

African countries will have to decide whether to adopt the business-as-usual, archaic "drill-baby-drill" strategy with their army of stranded assets or submit to the warring political and economic gladiators at the national level to achieve a truly people-centric development. Diversification in the upcoming years will result from the people's collective will, not from a prescriptive magical spread that is applied to the economy, and then boom! Immediately, there is an automatic transformation. That is untrue. It depends on the individuals who are truly driving change and how well-prepared they are to lead the development.  Africa's commitment, once again, will be shaped and defined by how we respond to the massive dislocations of the modern era, in which the world is drifting farther apart while drawing closer together. To be honest, the world has devolved into a cacophony of disparate voices, alive with hums of disconnected and interconnected tunes, creating a maze in which even the slightest tension can exacerbate discord. Here, the weak link between these states will derail all agreements reached. In reality, the same channel that brings convergence has the potential to either raise the phoenix of environmental sustainability from the ashes of our discord or cause us even more suffering as a result of our dire ecological circumstances.