Two-thirds of U.S. money for fossil fuel pours into Africa despite climate pledges: report

LONDON, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government has invested more than 9 billion U.S. dollars in oil and gas projects in Africa since it signed up to curb global warming in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

Two-thirds of all the money the United States has committed globally to fossil fuels in this time has poured into Africa, it said on Monday.

In Africa, 600 million people live without electricity, said the report, adding that floods, severe heatwaves and droughts are taking an increasingly devastating toll due to climate change.

The report quoted a climate scientist from Mali as saying that a lot of countries in Africa are in a dilemma because they need industrialization but it will require investment that will take time.

"Unfortunately this investment from the United States is not feeding the development of Africa, it's creating fossil fuels for export, this is the problem," said Youba Sokona, vice-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "The United States isn't investing for the interest of Africans, it's investing for the interests of the United States. We need to reverse that situation."