The last two decades should have been a period of accelerating economic development for Africa, South America and much of Asia. Discoveries of abundant oil and gas supplies offered a rescue from poverty, industrial stagnation and poor access to electricity and other basic services.

Instead, they got a man-made disaster, a deliberate slowdown of growth driven not by geographical disadvantage or domestic inefficiency but by a global campaign to divert affordable fossil fuels from poor nations.

Examples abound. At the United Nations’ COP26 of 2021, more than 30 governments and a number of public financial institutions committed to the so-called Glasgow Statement, also known as the Clean Energy Transition Partnership. The objective was to end new public finance for fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022 and instead prioritize “green” energy.

The European Investment Bank stopped financing all fossil fuel projects by the end of 2021, affecting billions in planned natural gas infrastructure. Major European pension funds and commercial institutions – BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale – reduced or eliminated support for development projects for oil, natural gas and coal, citing targets to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The coercion was unequivocal: Pursue fossil fuels and lose access to Western capital. The opposition to hydrocarbons was embraced by Western nonprofit organizations and........

© Townhall