Europe’s blanket ban on fossil fuel financing is facing criticism from African activists and energy experts, who describe it as unviable and a form of ‘climate colonialism.’
While the Global North aims to limit global warming to below 1.5°C under the Paris Agreement, countries like Germany and Norway are accused of climate hypocrisy for continuing to expand their own fossil fuel infrastructure while pressuring Africa to abandon essential energy sources.
European countries are investing billions in liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, including 11 new import terminals under construction, with 39 more proposed. According to WePlanet Africa, a network of grassroots charitable organisations driven by science-based solutions to climate change, just one of Europe’s LNG terminals consumes energy equivalent to the entire LPG usage of sub-Saharan Africa.
Germany alone is constructing LNG capacity three times greater than Africa’s current LPG use. These developments are backed by commercial loans and state policies, while African nations are restricted by World Bank and multilateral development bank (MDB) policies that discourage fossil fuel financing, including LPG.
“This isn’t just a double standard. It’s climate injustice,” said Patricia Nanteza, coordinator at WePlanet Africa, during the launch of the Just Stop Cooking campaign in Kampala. Nanteza criticized the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank for promoting unrealistic clean energy transitions in Africa.
She argued that it is unreasonable to expect African households to switch directly from biomass to electricity when over 1 billion people still depend on firewood and charcoal. The African Development Bank estimates the economic burden of reliance on biomass fuels at over $791.4 billion annually, including $526.3 billion in health-related costs.
“LPG must be seen as a transitional fuel,” she said. “It’s easier to move from LPG to electricity than from firewood to electricity. Let’s start with what works for our people.”
Indoor air pollution, mostly from biomass cooking, causes 700,000 deaths in Africa each year, more than the 500,000 deaths caused by malaria. Children under five are most at risk. LPG burns cleanly, helping to reduce this pollution and save lives. Environmentally, switching to LPG could also help preserve Africa’s forests.
Traditional biomass fuels are up to 10 times more carbon-intensive than LPG. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), replacing biomass with LPG could save millions of hectares of forest annually and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Citing research, Nanteza said that while induction cookers are technically the cheapest cooking method, LPG is still more affordable than charcoal.
“Science backs it up,” she said, “LPG is cheaper than charcoal. That’s a fact.”
Uganda’s own Energy Transition Plan (ETP) aims to ensure every Ugandan has access to green and affordable energy by 2030. Yet, 90% of Ugandans still rely on solid biomass, and the country remains among the lowest globally in modern energy use per capita.
Robert Turyakira, CEO of African Green Health Network, also condemned the World Bank’s resistance to LPG financing.
“Over 75% of Ugandans still rely on firewood,” he said. “We cannot afford to ignore the elephant in the room, deforestation.”
By 2040, Uganda aims to generate over 52,000 MW of electricity. Currently, only 20,000 MW are produced, and just 15,000 MW are consumed due to affordability issues. This energy gap makes the push for e-cooking unrealistic in the short term. Reports show that a single 13kg LPG cylinder saves six square meters of forest.
Scaling up LPG to meet the IEA’s Clean Cooking for All scenario could save up to 2 million hectares of forest annually, 40% of global deforestation.
“We must offer solutions that reflect local realities,” Turyakira said. “Africans contribute the least to global emissions but suffer the most. The right to clean air and a healthy environment is a human right.”
WePlanet Africa is calling for an explicit exemption for LPG from fossil fuel financing bans as part of clean cooking solutions. highly concessional financing from development partners to improve LPG affordability and African Government reforms such as VAT removal on LPG, pay-as-you-go schemes, and phased bans on charcoal once alternatives are viable.
According to the IEA, the global annual cost of delivering clean cooking is $4.5 billion, less than the cost of a single European LNG terminal. Redirecting this funding could achieve universal clean cooking access in Africa.
Dr Josephine Lubwama, CEO of Develop Brains Uganda, summed it up: “Children need time to learn, to dream, and to breathe clean air. LPG is the way to give them a better start.”
In the foreword to the Just Stop Cooking report, Ghana’s first Minister of State for Climate Change and Sustainability, Issifu Seidu, stated: “Denying African countries concessional financing for LPG in the name of climate is a grave injustice. We must put saving lives before ideology.”
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