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United States climate envoy John Kerry has held out the prospect of additional help being offered at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) to counties in Africa and elsewhere that are being badly affected by climate change issues.

Considerable attention has focused on critical or transition minerals, along with rare earths, as the world moves to decarbonise. Although frequently conflated, these minerals have distinctive – and contingent – definitions. African Energy provides a primer.

Speeches made by African leaders at the 1-2 November opening of COP26 provided some insights into how they plan to move ahead with decarbonisation, while ensuring they don’t lose out on development opportunities for their economies. African Energy examines an A-to-Z of the leaders’ preoccupations

For Africans who depend on the environment for their livelihoods, human security is more closely tied in with the effects of climate change than it is elsewhere.

COP26 opened with high-minded speeches and a welter of public and private sector commitments, as dozens of African nations said they would accelerate their own decarbonisation. Governments called for existing pledges to tackle environmental disaster to be met, underpinning a ‘just transition’ in which poorer economies aren’t penalised by big emitters’ plans to cut carbon.

Egypt’s COP27 is likely to be a fractious affair after the illusory harmony of COP26 in Glasgow, reflecting the daunting scale of financial support African nations need to protect themselves from climate change impacts while achieving developmental goals and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With developed nations’ budgets and stock of political capital for dealing with the climate crisis already depleted, African Energy’s monitoring of preparations for Sharm El Sheikh suggests it is becoming painfully clear that African negotiators’ demands cannot or will not be met at COP27.

More information has emerged about the mix of finance that will support South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). An official source from a G7 country told African Energy “there is an amount of grant and technical assistance. It is significant but not enormous.”

Senegal is in line to receive $1bn in climate finance via the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), a joint initiative of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Netherlands-based climate foundation the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA).

Australia Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed Walkabout Resources has finalised a senior debt facility with London-headquartered energy and commodities investor Gemcorp.

The state-owned Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) has agreed a $20m concessional loan to upgrade transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure in the Kamonyi district of Rwanda.

Analysis of procurement trends recorded on the African Energy Live Data platform shows that capacity procured through competitive auctions should add at least 15.1GW by 2027, with solar and natural gas adding an estimated 4.4GW and 4.3GW respectively, while wind and hybrid power will also make significant additions to the continent’s generation mix, writes Ajay Ubhi.

Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines is expanding its use of hydroelectric power (HEP) wheeled across state utility Société Nationale d’Electricité (Snel)’s grid to support its mining activities in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Haut-Katanga province, which include the world-scale Kamoa-Kakula copper mine.

Empower New Energy has started construction of a 1MWp ground-mounted plant for Harvest Feed and Agro Processing in Ajura, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Cairo-headquartered African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced on 2 October it had extended a $300m loan to Trident OGX Congo.

Sturdee Energy’s Bobonong and Shakawe solar PV plants have started commercial operations. The plants are among Botswana’s first renewable energy projects