The last few weeks have made two things clear. First, the heat waves hitting the Global North have hammered home (yet again) that climate change is getting faster and more dangerous by the day. Second, despite calls from U.S. climate czar John Kerry to separate climate issues from U.S.-China geopolitics, the opposite is true: Our collective climate struggle will increasingly be defined by the superpower horse race.

These realities are hitting Global South regions like Africa particularly hard. The continent’s leaders faces a triple challenge of dealing with climate disasters, decarbonizing their economies and leveraging whatever they can to deliver some semblance of development to youthful populations.