Mohamed A. Sultan

It is also one of the sectors where we kind of know how to abate at cost in the short term.

But let's also be very clear.

This continent will need more energy for better development.

That's an existential question for us.

And luckily for all of us, 80 percent of new generation capacity coming online in the next few years here will come from renewables.

And if we're able to strategically pair that with adequate investments and adequate planning, it accelerates our ability to diversify our energy mix away from reliance on fossil fuels.

and that is really important first and foremost for our own energy security.

It is also critically important because it helps us abate emissions today as we transition in the long term.

Because mind you, the industry, well, in gas industry in particular, absolutely knows how to solve their emissions problem.

Reduce flares, detect and plug your leaks, improve measurement, do it all over again.

And they have the money to do it.

It's just not happening at the scale and the speed that we need it to happen.

rely on voluntary commitments.

We absolutely need regulatory frameworks that compel core production, because otherwise, this is what we get.

This is a gas flare.

It is the burning of methane gas associated with oil extraction.

And it is as dangerous, as wasteful as it looks.

It is associated with high levels of respiratory diseases and high fevers, particularly in children.

And astonishingly, two million people in the Niger Delta in Nigeria live within a four-kilometer radius of one of these things.

And so what do we do?