To all African Heads of State and Ministers,

We are writing with concern about a proposal from a technical committee of the African Union for an “African Common Position on Energy Access and Transition” to be launched at COP27.

For the reasons set out below we, the undersigned organizations, representing movements and civil society groups from across Africa, urge you to reject the proposed “common position”.

We believe that the proposed “common position”, developed by a committee made up of national energy and transportation officials:

• Has been prepared hurriedly and without adequate consultation with scientists, experts and officials responsible for climate change and, as a result, lacks a proper scientific or evidential basis;
• Is inconsistent with the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency and the UN Environment Programme; and lacks critical analysis about the causes of energy poverty, the energy transition required, long-term climate policy scenarios, the associated risks of stranded assets, the threat of fossil fuel production to sustainable development and much more.

We believe that the recommendation included in the proposed “common position” to make fossil fuels a “crucial part” of Africa’s short, medium and long-term energy mix:

• Will not address the Committee’s own aims relating to energy access and transition;
• Is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement’s climate target of 1.5 °C, the existing African Common Position on Climate Change, and the goals of COP27;
• Risks levels of global heating with catastrophic consequences for Africa; and
• Is inconsistent with Africa’s wider development objectives, putting Agenda 2063 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals at risk.

We join with other organisations in supporting the Memorandum exposing and rejecting the African Union proposal for a Common Position on African Energy Access and Transition, which describes in further detail the African Union Committee’s position, and details the many concerns listed above.

The Committee’s position has been hurriedly prepared, yet is now being advanced rapidly for adoption by African Heads of State, and for endorsement by AGN, AMCEN and CAHOSCC. Despite focussing on “energy access” and “energy transition” it makes no specific recommendations to scale up renewable energy production or to provide energy to 600 million Africans who currently lack access. Instead, it prioritises the interests of the fossil fuel industry and European governments by seeking to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, production and exports.

This development comes on the back of a recent vote by the European Union to re-classify both fossil gas and nuclear energy projects as “green,” making them eligible for low-cost loans and subsidies. The underlying reason for this is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Europe now pivoting to Africa to achieve its own energy security. Read together, we believe there is a risk Africa’s energy investments will be skewed into producing fossil fuels for European consumption, and not energy access or transition for Africans.

In particular, the “dash for gas” in Africa is dangerous and short-sighted. Investing limited resources in fossil gas will strand assets and economies while threatening potential investments into affordable, easily deployable, accessible, much-needed renewable energy for the people.

Rather than provide Europe with more climate-damaging fossil fuels, Africa’s development agenda and the climate emergency call on us to rapidly shift away from harmful fossil fuels-based technologies towards a renewable energy future.

If adopted by our Heads of State, the proposed position could clear the way for COP27 to be used as platforms to justify a massive scaling-up of fossil gas production in Africa, distracting from the clear case for renewables, locking the continent into fossil fuels for decades to come, while also shifting dangerous nuclear technologies that Europeans do not want onto African soil.

This is a moment that requires urgent action. We believe that the AU technical committee has made a serious mistake. We are calling on you as our Heads of State and Ministers responsible for the energy and climate future of our continent to reject the proposed common position, and to instead:

1. Announce a fossil fuel policy in line with Africa’s development interests and the recommendations of the IPCC, IEA and other scientific organisations that confirms the African Union condemns and does not support new coal, oil or gas related projects on the African continent.

2. Foster transparent and meaningful dialogue with citizens and policy-makers across the continent to build a shared African narrative and agenda to tackle the linked challenges of climate, energy and development; and

3. Based on this dialogue, develop a science- and evidence-based African common position on energy access and transition that prioritizes Africa’s need to urgently move away from harmful fossil fuels towards a transformed energy system that is clean, renewable, democratic and actually serves its peoples.

To see the full list of signatories, access:www.dont-gas-africa.org/open-letter

For more information and other materials, visit: www.dont-gas-africa.org

Today the Say No to Gas! Campaign website is going live! The campaign, co-ordinated by JA! aims to bring an end to the gas industry in Mozambique and all over the world. We are focusing on the regions of Cabo Delgado, Inhambane and Nampula provinces in Mozambique, fighting an industry whose tentacles are spreading out around country, the African continent and the world.

We are working on the ground in Mozambique, and supported by an international coalition that challenges the impunity of the gas industry, exposing its violations and threats to human rights, environmental destruction and climate impact everywhere in the world, fighting the culprits in their own countries.

The website is a rich depository for anyone who wants to learn about the gas struggle, the devastating impacts, the facts about gas, companies, financiers and governments fuelling the industry, reports and regular updates.

http://www.stopmozgas.org

We look forward to your visit!
Aluta Continua!

In early June, JA! Activists were in Stockholm to participate in the Stockholm +50 People’s Forum for Environmental and Climate Justice. This event was a gathering of activists and civil society taking place parallel to the United Nations (UN) Stockholm +50 Conference. This event is a commemoration of the 50 year anniversary of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. The UN refers to this as the summit “that first made the link between environment and poverty and placed it at the forefront of the international agenda.”

It also marked the first of parallel civil society meetings and protests that have been held during UN summits ever since. It was one of the foundations for the process of bringing together social movements from around the world, including from the global South, to discuss and strategise together and strengthen the work for social and environmental justice, while also broadening narratives and bringing critiques to the formal UN event. From this came a system where civil society began engaging in formal spaces at UN meetings.

The People’s Forum was three days of activities developed by the Stockholm +50 Coalition, who describe themselves as a “collective of civil society and social movements fighting for environmental, social and climate justice,” and the aim of the event was to be a place where “social movements are planning parallel activities to highlight principles, demands and actions that respond to the depth and seriousness of the crises we are facing – with global justice and challenging of power relations at the core.”

For more detailed information about the people’s forum go to: https://stockholmplus50.se/en/start-english/

JA! spoke on four panels which focused on some elements of our work. These were on the need to stop corporate abuse and privileges by saying ‘yes’ to a UN Binding Treaty on business and human rights and ‘no’ to ‘free’ trade agreements that threaten democracy; the danger of false climate solutions; the complicity of Swedish pension funds in fossil fuel destruction in Mozambique and elsewhere; and ideas for the way forward after 50 years of struggle for system change.

The forum included a manifestation, or protest, in the centre of Stockholm where activists from communities around the world, including JA! Spoke alongside activists including people from Mexico, Namibia, Colombia and Lebanon to a crowd of at least 300 people about what Swedish people can do to fight climate injustice, such as demanding that their pension funds divest from fossil fuels.

The forum raised the greater question of what has changed in these five decades of fighting for climate, environmental and social justice and how we can use learnings from this to collectively strengthen these struggles. But to answer these questions, it is important to look at what has not yet changed.

For example, even though companies like Shell were well aware of climate change in 1981 we still do not have a binding treaty at the United Nations level, which would force companies to act with basic humanity. Corporate capture has only become more prevalent, bilateral agreements remain advantageous to northern and former colonial states, and processes like Investor State Dispute Relations have strengthened the skewed unequal power relations even further towards wealthy transnational corporations.

The legacy of colonisation remains crippling to former colonies, with Mozambique being a good example of this. By looking just at the gas industry in Inhambane and Cabo Delgado provinces, countries like the UK, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands and South Africa, are benefiting, or will continue to benefit from fossil gas projects led by Total, Eni, ExxonMobil, Sasol and many others, while Mozambique’s economy continues to collapse and its level of debt grows. Northern governments are well aware that their companies are destroying the global South but their narrative of ‘gas for development’ merely enables them to the benefit from the historical colonial structures of poverty, debt and corruption they themselves created.

There remains a lack of accountability for the impacts of the industry – communities losing their homes and livelihoods and being ripped apart, many in refugee centres and devastated by a violent war, fuelled by the industry, that has killed thousands and created almost one million refugees.

What has not changed is shown just by the very need to hold events like Stockholm +50. How is it that the most powerful countries and most respected international regulatory body in the world is still unable to control fossil fuel companies and banks, and still refuse to cut their investment into fossil fuels? How is it that we have treaties like the Paris and Glasgow Agreements and yet still have to fight for companies and northern states to invest in the vast renewable resources the earth has to offer? How do we still not have a Binding Treaty on Transnational Corporations at the UN when companies have shown time and again that they will not voluntarily abide by human rights regulations?

However, there are also those things that have changed. The introduction of the climate treaties mentioned above show that pressure from civil society and Southern peoples has been working. While there remains a struggle to get companies to act in accordance with them, and although they leave much to be desired, the mere fact that they exist means that institutions of power, like the UN and European Union are at least heading in the right direction. As governments of countries where extractivism is taking place are clamping down more and more on journalists and activists, people continue to stand up; as transnational corporations continue to evade tax in the countries where they operate, people continue to fight for their rights to basic services.

Another very promising thing the Peoples Forum showed was the large number of young people from around the world taking up the climate struggle, and radicalising their local fights. They made a crucial point: The narrative that needs to change, and has already begun changing, is that the struggle for climate justice must be inclusive, and a fight that goes beyond environmental damage, but is also a fight for justice for the poor, and people worst affected by climate change.