Rich nations cheat the poor of fossil fuels

The rich world's fossil fuel hypocrisy is on full display in its response to the global energy crisis following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While the wealthy G7 countries ask the world's poor to use only renewables because of climate concerns, European countries and the United States are begging Arab countries to raise oil production, with Germany reopening coal power plants and Spain and Italy prodding African countries to increase gas production. In fact, so many European countries have asked Botswana to mine more coal that the country will have to triple its exports.

Now consider this: A single person in the rich world uses more fossil fuel energy than all the energy available to 23 poor Africans. The rich world became wealthy by massively exploiting fossil fuels, which today provides more than three-quarters of its energy. Sunlight and wind deliver less than 3 percent of the rich world's energy.

Yet the rich are choking off funding for new fossil fuels to the developing world. Most of the world's poorest 4 billion people have no meaningful access to energy, so the rich blithely tell them to "leapfrog" from no energy to a "green nirvana" of solar panels and wind turbines.