The new offshore gas terminal appears through the morning fog blanketing the Atlantic Ocean near Saint Louis where Senegal meets Mauritania.

It has been hailed as an economic reset in developing Africa and condemned as a new source of pollution in a world choking on global warming.

A dugout canoe is towed up the wet sand on the beach after a night of fishing.

“Not many fish,” El Hadji Gaye scowls, his gaze falling on the massive structure nearly 10 kilometers (six miles) out to sea.

Senegal, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has discovered oil and gas deposits that raise hopes for future wealth and industrialization.

They have no intention of giving in to appeals to keep lucrative oil and gas in the ground in the name of fighting climate change.

Senegalese President Macky Sall says it would be “an injustice” and he has launched a diplomatic counter-offensive to justify the resource extraction, beginning next year.

“Since we are not the biggest polluters, since we are not industrialized, it would be unfair in the search for a solution (to global warming) to ban Africa from exploiting the natural resources below,” Sall said during his visit to in May Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

And the message now seems even more likely to be heard that Europeans, facing a major energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are looking to diversify their oil and gas supplies.

Niger, the world’s poorest country according to the UN’s Human Development Index, is also building Africa’s longest oil pipeline – a nearly 2,000-kilometer link to Benin that will allow it to export crude oil as early as next year.

Aliou Ba, head of Greenpeace Africa’s ocean campaign, stressed that fossil fuel exploitation will further “exacerbate” the climate crisis, with efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius appearing increasingly futile.

Francois Gemenne, expert at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: “When you are poor it is very difficult to give up treasure, so something more interesting has to be offered.

“What is at stake is that these countries can and do choose to move towards a decarbonized economy.

“And that requires technology transfer and investments in renewables, which are usually still lacking.”

At the pre-COP27 talks held in Kinshasa in early October, calls for alternative technologies and substantial funding to support a green transition were heard.

But the government of the vast, rainforest-covered Democratic Republic of the Congo is standing by its right to promote gasoline and gas, despite criticism from environmental groups who warn of the massive release of carbon.

Speaking ahead of the COP, Congolese Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde pointed out that some European nations have returned to burning highly polluting coal due to gas shortages triggered by the Russian invasion.

He warned of “discrimination” “where certain states are free to continue or even increase their emissions and others are prevented from exploiting their natural resources”.

Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s senior climate negotiator, sees a positive outcome. “Paradoxically, it is oil money, seen as dirty, that allows us to have sufficient funds to reclaim our environmental sovereignty and reduce emissions from deforestation,” he said.

Senegal’s oil and gas discoveries account for just 0.07 percent and 0.5 percent of the world’s reserves, respectively.

But Energy and Oil Minister Sophie Gladima said: “They are important enough to radically transform our country’s economy and industrial fabric and, by extension, its prospects for the future.”

“Just using our hydrocarbons will allow us to accelerate public access to electricity and, most importantly, reduce production costs and encourage industrialization.”

She underlined the legal framework needed to bring thousands of Senegalese jobs to the sector and the establishment of the National Oil and Gas Institute to produce a highly skilled workforce.

But the fishermen say they are excluded from the government’s planned future.

The closer the start of gas production gets, the more the authorities control the offshore platform.

A security perimeter has been established and a boat is patrolling the coast to block any mariner attempting to cross an invisible barrier.

“This is where we found the most fish,” says El Hadji.

“Now we’re trapped because we can’t get there or further north into Mauritanian waters,” adds the 39-year-old fisherman.

Behind him, more than a dozen of his comrades sing rhythmically as they push their colorful canoe across the sand, following centuries-old traditions on a narrow strip of land separating the Senegal River from the Atlantic.

“I only know how to fish. My parents fished, so did my grandparents. What will I become? What will my children do?” asks El Hadji.

He turns and looks at his friends as the waves break. In the distance, the gas platform looms over the ocean.