Many low-lying nations have used the UN conference, which is currently under way in Doha, to call for a threshold temperature rise less than 2C, arguing that even a 2C rise will jeopardise their future.
So asking for that kind of money for only scientific research or exploration, even if it would eventually pay back several times the investment, would not be an easy sell. But there might be another reason to go, one that could swing the argument in its favour. And it involves something of a surprising and indirect stepping stone. Literally.
Every nail, brick and tile is imported. Equatorial Guinea is rich in oil, gas and timber but it manufactures nothing. Even the food consumed by the construction crews is trucked into the jungle from Cameroon.
The Pamp gold refinery looks like any other modern factory block from the outside. Even the entrance is not especially remarkable, apart from a somewhat higher-than-normal level of security.
But at the end of the year, only urban areas currently have access to the signal and even then, an early large-scale test of the network indicated that less than half of Manchester city centre could use its high speeds. According to the study, outside the city centre there was no 4G coverage at all.
