Over the past few years the fossil fuel industry's focus has increasingly been on Africa

where it is fast tracking new fossil fuel development and infrastructure and often talking about it as a way to

pull Africa out of poverty, despite the fact that a lot of the oil being produced there and

moved around is ultimately for exporting to global North countries, which

oil majors will profit off of, but developing countries, maybe not so much.

Proponents of this build-out

often talk about how it will bring both

development funding and the money necessary

to adapt to climate change for countries in Africa. They talk about rampant energy poverty on the

continent. That's the term used to describe lack of access to consistent power.

In a lot of ways it's a real indictment of international climate

negotiations that countries in Africa and other parts of the global South feel

like they have to depend on oil majors to pay for climate adaptation.

We've talked about that before, especially in our season on Exxon's project in Guyana. In the absence of the money that's long been promised, first

as climate reparations and then as loss and damages, many countries feel like they can't really

escape extractive industry.

Unfortunately, it's also pretty unlikely

that fossil-fueled development

will actually pay off for these countries.

In Africa, Nigeria, the country with the oldest, largest,

and most established fossil fuel industry on the continent is a prime example.

Nigeria currently has the world's lowest energy access rates and while

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