How the world's climate promises became a new way to keep Africa poor

 

"[The world] today says ... 'Net Zero by 2050. ... 

"Banks sign net-zero pledges and quietly stop funding energy projects in Africa (while continuing to fund the exact same projects in America, Canada, and Norway). The African Energy Chamber has a term for this: financial apartheid.

"Meanwhile, NGOs run campaigns ... to pressure Western financiers out of ... a project Uganda and Tanzania are building to export their own oil. The European Parliament actually passed a resolution against it in September 2022. ... And every quarter, investors publish sustainability reports full of net-zero targets that have almost nothing to do with whether anyone in sub-Saharan Africa can turn on a light. 

"Africa is responsible for about 4% of global CO₂ emissions. Four percent. No serious calculation says that cutting off financing to the continent that contributes the least will change the trajectory of the climate. ...

"Back home, 600 million people on my continent don’t have electricity.

"The WHO estimates that cooking with wood and charcoal kills around 800,000 people a year in Africa from the smoke alone, most of them women and children. 

"The solution is LPG, which comes from natural gas, but building the gas infrastructure to distribute it gets caught in the same net-zero 'logic' that chokes everything else.

"Nigeria sits on some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world yet its power grid collapsed again in February 2026. At Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital in 2025, three ICU patients died during a blackout because the hospital had gone days without power. Twenty-six percent of health facilities across sub-Saharan Africa have no electricity at all. And the people signing those net-zero pledges in London and New York will never know their names.

"No single bank executive decided to keep Africans in the dark. But the world's net-zero pledges created a structure where not funding African fossil fuels became the easy, compliant thing to do, and funding them became a career risk. ...

"I grew up in Senegal, and I remember my grandmother cooking over fire because there was nothing else when the power went out. Cutting off Africa’s energy doesn’t save the planet. It just guarantees that the next generation grows up the same way mine did.

"That’s what I’m working to change through Prosperity Not Poverty — because African nations have the right to use their own resources to build their own futures."

~ Magatte Wade from her post 'The Lie Keeping Africa in the Dark'

Congratulations to Cuba, the world's first Net Zero country

New Zealand, as you will all know by now, has been set by our government with at "target" to be Net Zero of greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., fossil fuels) by 20250.

But you don't need a time machine to see that future for a small island nation like ours..  You can just travel to the small island nation of Cuba,  where "the Trump administration is helping Cuba to achieve Net Zero by preventing oil tankers from landing there."

Only, in the New York Times article about this, it describes it as a bad thing. It has, says the Times, brought Cuba “to its knees.”

In Cuba, people are struggling with frequent blackouts, shortages of gasoline and cooking gas and dwindling supplies of diesel that power the nation’s water pumps. Trash is piling up, food prices are soaring, schools are cancelling classes and hospitals are suspending surgeries...

Wasn't the end of fossil fuels supposed to be a boon to this small island nation? 

Can't they use the "renewable," i.e., unreliable energy, with which Cuba is blessed to replace the fossil fuels so kindly withheld from them by theUS? After all, Cuba already has a bunch of wind farms. So as the Manhattan Contrarian asks, "Why doesn’t it just crank them up to provide the power formerly supplied by the fossil fuels?"

Could it be that a small island nation's power plants, water pumps, transport, food, families, schools and hospitals -- not to mention basic rubbish collection -- all actually depend on the reliable energy of fossil fuels?

Take a closer look at Cuba if you don't want that to be our future.

Offshore emissions

"Can someone explain how the deindustrialisation of the UK and Germany [et al] will save the planet? 

    "I still struggle to understand why they sacrifice their industries, jobs and prosperity only to outsource production to Asia, which increases global emissions. Does it make any sense to you?"

~ Michael A. Arouet

Checking in on human progress

 The start of a year is a good time to do a stocktake. An update. A check-in on how well we're all getting on. Energy maven Alex Epstein offers an important data point...

Anti-growth (and anti-energy) catastrophists like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were wrong. Today's humans are the best-fed humans in history.

And things will keep improving—unless we fall for new catastrophist propaganda like civilisation-crippling “net zero” plans.

 

"It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world—that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison."

"It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world—that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison."

~ Harvard Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen

"[T]he [climate] scenario leading to the greatest amount of climate change [is] called RCP8.5 (indicating a radiative forcing of 8.5 W/m2 in 2100), [which has been adopted by the UN's IPCC] as the single business-as-usual scenario .... which gave it special status among ... the hundreds of baseline scenarios of the broader IPCC scenario database.
    "RCP8.5 is not simply 'highly unlikely' — it is [already] falsified, meaning that its emissions trajectory is already well out of step with reality. We showed this conclusively in Burgess et al. 2021, from which the annotated figure below comes.
    "The gap between the black arrow (RCP8.5) and the blue arrow (reality) indicates that RCP8.5 is not just unlikely, but impossible — it is already wildly wrong. Since we published that paper, that gap between RCP8.5 and reality has only grown larger.'

~ Justin Ritchie & Roger Pielke Jr., from their article 'How Climate Scenarios Lost Touch With Reality'

Source: Burgess et al. 2021

"When the story of the great turn-of-the-millennium climate science fraud comes to be written by future historians, the central role of the RCP8.5 ‘business as usual’ model scenario, much featured in recent IPCC reports, will be obvious to all. This ‘pathway’ has polluted climate model predictions for years with its wild and improbable claims of carbon dioxide emissions and soaring temperatures. A huge number of science papers incorporating the pathway are published by obvious Net Zero activists, and their ‘scientists say’ climate psychosis-inducing fairy tales are sped on their way by blinkered journalists in the mainstream press. The science writer Roger Pielke Jr. notes that RCP8.5 has been 'falsified' – most knew it was fake, historians are likely to conclude, but the Net Zero addiction was too strong for it to be given up."

~ Chris Morrison from his post 'The Great Climate Science Swindle Goes On'

"Coal is expected to dominate the energy sector for at least three more decades"

"[C]oal is the backbone of energy production, supplying over 70% of India’s electricity. The dark evenings of my childhood have been brightened.

"Other developing countries have learned from China and India how coal jump-starts economies and lifts millions from poverty. Now, they too line up for their share of the fuel that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

"Global coal production reached an all-time high of nearly 9 billion metric tons in 2024. Chinese and Indian output continued to grow, and Indonesia set export records.

"India is on track to burn twice as much coal as the U.S. and Europe put together – possibly within the year – while China has already surged ahead, consuming 30% more coal than every other nation combined. ...

"Coal shipments to Southeast Asia are on a steady climb ... Rising production of South American crude steel will increase demand for metallurgical coal ... African energy production [is] on the rise ... Even the U.K. government, while still parading its 'net zero' credentials, is, nonetheless, procuring [imported] coking coal to keep British Steel alive ... In the U.S., President Trump has prioritised coal under a new executive order ...

"Coal is expected to dominate the energy sector for at least three more decades, barring a disruption by rapid innovation that would enable its economical displacement. Similarly, the mineral will continue to play a crucial role in iron and steel production absent development of a viable alternative.

"Predictions to the contrary are just so much hot air – largely from those most averse to a warming atmosphere."

~ Vijay Jayaraj from his post 'Big, Beautiful Coal Here for Many More Years Despite ‘Green’ Demonisation'

Banning fracking

What would be the effect of a US president banning fracking? Alex Epstein has the answer:

Banning fracking would have been one of the most harmful policies in US history. It would have destroyed 60% of our oil production and 75% of our natural gas production.

Why is that important?

Fracking is very likely the single most beneficial technological development of the last 25 years. By extracting cheap, abundant oil and natural gas from once useless rock, it has made energy far cheaper than it would otherwise be.

The availability of food is highly determined by the cost of oil, which powers crucial machinery, and gas, which is the basis of the fertilizer that allows us to feed 8 billion people. Thanks to fracking, the world is far better fed than it would otherwise be.

Given how life-giving fracking is to humanity and how essential it is to the prosperity and security of the US, any politician who has ever suggested banning fracking should be considered an energy menace until and unless they issue a deeply reflective apology.

So does any US presidential candidate want to ban fracking? Hard to know. But there's at least one who did: 

Kamala Harris ... in 2019 said, “There is no question I am in favour of banning fracking,” [and] now tells voters in fracking-dependent states like Pennsylvania that she is no longer wants to ban fracking.

Should we believe her?

They shouldn’t believe her, since Harris’s net-zero agenda requires banning fracking. ... And far from questioning the anti-fossil-fuel, “net zero” agenda, she has remained 100% committed to it.

Which means she’s an enemy of not just fracking but all fossil fuel use.

The guiding energy goal of Biden/Harris is “net zero by 2050”—rapidly banning activities that add CO2 to the atmosphere.

Since there’s no scalable way to capture CO2, burning fossil fuels necessarily means more CO2.

Given that “net zero by 2050” requires banning virtually all fossil fuel activity, the whole conversation about whether Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking is absurd.

You can’t be for fracking and for net-zero anymore than you can be for penicillin and for banning all antibiotics.

So, what about the other candidate? Where exactly does Trump stand?

Frankly, who the hell could know.

"Eric's Principle of Green Energy: Green policies are self limiting. The ultimate backstop on political climate ambition is the catastrophic economic mess green policies cause."

 

Pic: Tadeáš Bednarz, via Jo Nova

"When climate advocates say 'Net Zero,' are they actually referring to how much cash green investors will have left when the last bubble bursts?'
    "It seems people only wanted renewable energy if they got cheap loans.
    "The general US S&P shares index gained 15% this year but The Invesco Solar ETF (Fund) which invests in solar energy stocks around the world — fell by a dire 40%. Even the [ill-named pork barrel subsidy-packed] US 'Inflation Reduction Act' couldn’t save the solar sector. As finances tighten with rising interest rates, apparently solar panel orders are among the first to be cancelled.
    "Some of the worst performers in the whole US share market are solar shares ... Solar panels [are] a luxury item. If only solar panels were cheaper, in tough economic times, everyone would want them. [Instead, some headlines:]

• Solar Stocks Shaken By High Interest Rates And Supply Chain Issues ...
• What happened to solar stocks? Investors ‘pick up the pieces’ after a brutal earnings season ...
• Solar Stocks Still Searching For A Bottom ...

"This once again demonstrate’s Eric [Worrall]’s Principle of Green Energy – green policies are self limiting. The ultimate backstop on political climate ambition is the catastrophic economic mess green policies cause.
    "The high interest rates which are crippling green energy and EV supply chains are largely due to energy price inflation, which is a direct consequence of green obsessed regulatory hostility towards fossil fuel. Green energy policies are directly driving the demise of the green energy industry.
    "Personally if I was invested in companies with exposure to this insanity, I’d be calling for the scalp of whichever intellectually challenged executive decided to gamble with my shareholder capital. This crash was inevitable and obvious, it was only the timing of the crash which was uncertain."

~ composite quote from Jo Nova and Eric Worrall, from their respective posts 'Solar Stocks crashed in the last quarter too, down 40% so far this year around the world' and 'The Great Green Crash – Solar Down 40%'

RELATED:

"This is life under Net Zero"

"Greens have been dreaming about jailing ‘climate criminals’ for a very long time. Climate-change deniers in particular will ‘one day have to answer for their crimes’, said eco-author Mark Lynas a few years back. Well, Gaia’s authoritarian army might finally be getting its way....
    "'The Telegraph' is reporting that [UK] property owners who fail to adhere to ‘energy-performance regulations’ could ‘face prison’ under the government’s crazy plans. There is concern that homeowners, landlords and business bosses could be whacked with fines of up to £15,000 or a year behind bars if they fall foul of regulations on energy consumption....
    "We can now see the iron fist in the green glove. There’s been a creeping criminalisation of eco-disobedient behaviour for some time now. In the UK, we’ve had ‘rubbish police’ looking through people’s bags of trash and slapping them with a £100 fine if they are not properly recycling plastic and paper. Under Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes, officious local councils erect eyesore bollards to stop people from driving on certain roads, and fine them if they fail to comply....
    "These fines on the eco-wayward are a kind of green penance; economic punishment for one’s failure to adhere to the ideology of Net Zero. Things that were once seen as a normal, essential part of everyday life – throwing out the trash, dropping the kids at school – have become punishable activities thanks to Net Zero’s redefinition of human activity as ‘dirty’, polluting, bad. It is entirely logical that other everyday activities – heating your home, say, or keeping the lights on – might also become fineable offences in the future.... This is life under Net Zero, then.
    "Net Zero is an authoritarian assault on our liberty and our living standards. At root, [it] is an act of wilful self-impoverishment by a West that has lost faith in modernity. It is the formalisation of our elites’ slow but sure turn against the ideals of industry, growth and just comfort."

~ Brendan O'Neill, from his column 'The iron fist in the green glove'

"Environmentalism is austerity on steroids."

 

"The left claims to hate austerity and yet its eco-dystopia would plunge millions into poverty....
    "We’re against austerity, they insist, and yet then they agitate for an austerity of apocalyptic proportions. This, surely, is the most stark incongruity of the modern left. They rail against every library closure or reform of welfare payments as an intolerable assault on people’s living standards, and then they take to the streets in their thousands in support of a degrowth agenda that would plunge vast swathes of humankind into penury. They’re far meaner than any right-wing penny-pincher they claim to oppose....
    "[T]hese privileged hysterics are determined to drum into the small minds of the polluting masses just how dangerous climate change has become.... if [this eco-leftist movement] were to get its way, if its Malthusian dream of leaving fossil fuels in the ground were ever to be realised, it would make [politicians'] post-2008 austerity programme[s] look like an era of milk and honey. The impact of Just Stop Oil’s Anti-Industrial Revolution, its misanthropic urge to wind back modernity itself, would be truly dire – especially for the working classes.
    "Environmentalism is austerity on steroids. Consider one of Just Stop Oil’s key demands: ‘No new oil or gas.’ This would be – there’s no other word for it – psychotic.... [T]o ‘rapidly eliminate fossil-fuel use’ would make the world an impoverished, dangerous and miserable place for most people. Fossil fuels provide 80 per cent of the world’s energy. Just three per cent comes from solar and wind power, so beloved of green anti-modernists. And even that measly slice of global energy production is ... totally dependent on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, for 24/7 back-up. That is, if the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, we have to crank up the fossil fuels. Ours is a world in which three-billion people still use less electricity than your average American fridge. Agitating for less energy production in such a time is callous beyond belief. It would issue a death sentence on the world’s poor....
    "We are already getting daily tasters of how destructive eco-austerity can be. The Net Zero ideology, embraced by governments across the West, aims to do in slow-motion what Just Stop Oil would do overnight: wean mankind off fossil fuels. And its consequences are awful. Farms closed down, farmers losing their jobs, truckers’ lives being made more difficult, driving being made more expensive, air travel once again becoming the preserve of the rich, power stations going unbuilt… the elites’ unhinged hostility towards fossil fuels has already birthed all of this. Imagine how much worse it would get if Just Stop Oil’s vision of a fossil-free world came to fruition."

~ Brendan O'Neill, from his post 'Environmentalism is austerity on steroids'