The EU's big offer at the two-day EU-AU summit was the Global Gateway Africa — a €150bn initiative that, among other goals, aims to connect Africa's mineral wealth to the global market and invest in the continent's electrification, preferably using clean energy.
"Africa is rich in hydropower, solar power and wind power," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on 18th February, at the close of the two-day summit in Brussels.
"To end climate change the world needs Africa," she said.
The availability of far more power from renewables has been amply demonstrated in Africa, with countries like Kenya and Morocco already significant generators of cleaner energy.
Yet for some African countries, the focus may be as much on fossil sources — in particular natural gas.
Nigeria, Mozambique and Senegal are sitting on giant natural gas reserves, and they have lobbied hard in recent months for Europe to continue to make financial support available for new gas projects.
Macky Sall, the Senegalese president who currently presides over the African Union, has said that cutting off funding for new gas exploration would amount to "a fatal blow" for emerging African countries.
European vice president Margrethe Vestager and Nigerian vice president Yemi Osinbajo ahead of the summit agreed to "explore all options for increased supply of Liquified Natural Gas from Nigeria to the EU."
That pledge came against a backdrop of Osinbajo writing in Foreign Affairs magazine about wealthy nations banning or restricting public investment in fossil fuels, including natural gas, after "decades of profiting from oil and gas" themselves.
But the African push on energy is a difficult matter for the EU, where many member states don't want to be seen investing in gas at a time when climate action is centre-stage.
Europe itself also is deeply divided over the role of gas as a transition fuel to a cleaner future.