With international investment already lacking in Africa - and some countries burned by disappointing promises of cash from sluggish carbon markets - many African countries are struggling to see net-zero policy as a priority, they added."Without the financing, it's hard to have that incentive," said Damilola Ogunbiyi, special representative of the UN secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All, noting investment in low-carbon energy systems in Africa had lagged.
Lee White, Gabon's environment minister, said his Central African nation, which has protected its forests carefully, was already absorbing 1 million more tonnes of carbon dioxide a year than it emitted."We don’t think about net zero. We think about how we maintain our net-positive contribution to climate change," he said.