159whether their countries would consider development via renewable energy, Minister
Nebo stated:
Africa is hugely in darkness. Whatever we can do to get Africa from a place of darkness to
a place of light ... I think we should encourage that to happen.
and Minister Muhongo replied:
We in Africa, we should not be in the discussion of whether we should use coal or not. In
my country of Tanzania, we are going to use our natural resources because we have reserves
which go beyond 5 billion tons
Implicit in the replies of Ministers Nebo and Muhongo is the notion that for
countries such as Nigeria and Tanzania to move their economies forward without
relying on domestic reserves of fossil fuel, such that their citizens achieve a stan-
dard of living comparable to that of nations on other continents, the developed
world must support this effort via payment of a so-called climate rent (Jakob and
Hilaire 2015 ; Bauer et al. 2016 ). The climate rent is predicated on two notions: (1)
Fig. 4.7 Population and night lights, North America and Africa. Same as Fig. 4.6, except these
two regions have been enlarged, for visual clarity
4.3 Economic Disparity