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Oil and gas majors TotalEnergies, BP, Shell and Equinor pledged to invest $500 million to increase access to affordable energy, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, south and southeast Asia.
That is about 0.7 per cent of some $70 billion in net profit the four companies collectively earned in 2023.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where discussion has focused on raising $1 trillion in climate finance from richer nations to help developing countries.
A spokesperson for TotalEnergies declined to name the global private equity firm selected to manage the funds, but said the $500 million would be disbursed over several years via tenders for projects along the energy value chain.
That will include domestic solar energy systems, micro-electricity grids, energy production, transport, logistics and storage, e-mobility technologies, and modern cooking fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, south and southeast Asia.
The International Energy Agency estimates that more than 2.3 billion people worldwide still cook their meals on traditional stoves burning wood, charcoal and animal dung, leading to health problems.
"It is early days, but we hope that by jointly investing, we will be able to contribute to wider efforts to tackle the very real challenge of access to energy," said BP CEO Murray Auchincloss.
The firms did not disclose how much each individual company had pledged.
Earlier this year TotalEnergies announced a separate $400 million investment to develop LPG for cooking in Africa and India through 2030. -Reuters