The World Needs to Quit Oil and Gas. Africa Has an Idea: Rich Countries First

THE staff at Big Cabal, a media start-up, wanted to ditch its diesel generator, but needed something to keep the office air-conditioners running. The generator was noisy, expensive and, maybe worst of all, bad for the environment.

Hoping for a greener solution to its problem, Big Cabal in 2019 bought solar panels for its two-story office building.

But the leap to solar didn’t go according to plan — and the reasons illuminate the big challenges Africa faces from climate change. The region is rich in fossil fuels and is eager to use them to fix its notoriously unreliable power grids. But to slow global warming, nations must burn less oil and gas, not more. Meantime, Africa is heating up much faster than the rest of the world.

For starters, Big Cabal found that the solar panels cost about three times more than the generator in maintenance costs. And, even though