It may not be on the official agenda at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, but the thorny question of whether African nations should receive financial support to produce, use and export natural gas as part of a clean energy transition is on everyone's lips.
Climate campaigners have pitched themselves against African governments that believe they should be allowed to use gas — which emits less climate-heating carbon dioxide than coal and oil when burned — to develop their economies and provide power to 600 million Africans who still lack access to electricity.
Activists raised the alarm last month when Tarek el-Molla, Egypt's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, told a ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum that fossil gas is "the perfect solution" to "achieving the energy trilemma for security, sustainability and affordability."