When policymakers, financiers, and environmentalists converge in Egypt in November for the UN Climate Conference or COP 27, a key issue will be how to handle Africa’s delicate transition to clean and renewable energy and avoid colossal economic disruption in a region reliant on its vast hydrocarbon fossil fuel reserves.
Presently, almost half of sub-Saharan Africa’s export value is composed of fossil fuels and this may surge further amid rising discoveries of oil and gas reserves in countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, Mauritania, Senegal, Kenya and Uganda.
