"Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." Cree Indian Prophecy
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre, the day that striking South African mineworkers were violently attacked by the police, who killed 37 unarmed people. The police, government, company and even current President Cyril Ramaphosa, who were all directly involved, have not been held accountable for their crimes, and have gotten away, literally, with murder.
On the 16 August 2012, rockdrillers at Lonmin platinum mine were on strike, after a week of protests, demanding a basic, decent, liveable salary of R12 500 (MT 43 600 at the time) a month, on which the company refused to negotiate. The men were gathered on a hill, when the police opened live fire, unprovoked, and many men met horrific deaths – some of them were shot at close range, and some were even crushed by police vehicles.
Today, a full decade later, rockdrillers at the company are only earning R13 000 (MT 49 600). Lonmin never issued a formal apology for this massacre, not even to the families of those slain or the injured and has not provided all families with income compensation. In 2018, the company was bought by Sibanye-Stillwater. Lonmin has been a snake, slithering out of the country to avoid culpability.
No members of the police force. nor the government have been pinished or even legally charged for these blatant murders. President Ramphosa was a non-executive director of Lonmin at the time, and put pressure on the police to treat the strike as a criminal matter. Yet he has been exonerated of any responsibility for this massacre.
The families of the murdered mineworkers are continuing to go to court to obtain justice for their loved ones, for those guilty of these crimes to face some kind of punishment, and they will continue fight.
South Africans still live in an economic apartheid. The poor, including workers in the extractive and fossil fuel industries – the bodies on whom companies make as much as hundreds of billions every year – are still treated as less than human, as mere transactional tools to keep the capitalist system working for the wealthy, for local and international political and economic elite to benefit from their mere existence. This goes beyond South Africa – these exact same words can be used when talking about the extractive industries in Mozambique, Tanzania, Namibia, Lesotho, DRC, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Morocco, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Native American lands, to name very, very few.
Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin once said: Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy stems from the poverty of the poor. We at JA! Stand in solidarity with the families of the murdered Lonmin mineworkers and those injured, with those fighting for basic humanity around the world, with those fighting for their lands, livelihoods, and the earth.
We urgently need the United Nations (UN) to implement a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights, an accountability tool that actually has teeth and that communities devastated by corporations and civil society have been demanding for years.
Guiding principles are not enough – corporations have shown that they have no interest in human rights, the climate and the environment, except when they need to tick a box- and guidelines are certainly not going to force them to act with humanity.
It is time for institutions of power – states, especially those in the North, the UN and European Union- to create, and enforce laws that will make companies like Lonmin pay for their crimes, and protect lives, like those of the Marikana miners, struggling for their basic right to be treated as human beings. We must continue to fight to ensure that this capitalist, imperialist and neo-colonialist system of exploitation ends right now!
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.”
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.
The Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower dam project, mooted more than two decades ago, has re-emerged as a solution for increasing power exports to South Africa to enable Mozambique to increase its capacity for earning foreign currency. The project is now being promoted at a cost of USD 4.5 billion comprising USD 2.4 billion for the dam and power plant, plus USD 2.1 billion for transmission lines. This essay discusses the merits of the Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower project and its socio-economic and development benefits in the face of climate change impacts, at a time when the world is facing energy challenges that require rethinking the most sustainable types and sources of energy for the future.
The Mphanda Nkuwa Dam would be the third largest dam to be constructed on the main stem of the Zambezi River and one of many other dams in the basin when the Zambezi tributaries are considered. Its location in the lower Zambezi River basin, in Mozambique, gives it unique features and makes it vulnerable and also crucial in determining the health of the downstream ecosystems. As currently designed, the hydropower plant has a 1500 MW generation capacity, with 60% (900 MW) of this capacity committed for export to South Africa and the balance of 600 MW (40%) reserved for domestic consumption in Mozambique. Currently, over 60% of Mozambicans, most of whom live in widely dispersed settlements in remote rural areas, do not have access to modern electricity and are out of reach of the existing national electricity grid. Far much more than 600MW would be required to enable Mozambique reach 50% access to electricity by 2030.
The project is planned for commissioning in 2030, with about 2 years of this needed for planning and design, while construction is expected to take 6 years. The touted benefits of Mphanda Nkuwa are doubtful in the face of climate change and the fact that the dam will be detrimental to downstream ecosystems, as well as human health and safety while leading to the loss of livelihoods for downstream communities. As is the case in most similar large infrastructure projects, the Mphanda Nkuwa dam and hydropower project is drawing favor from international financial institutions such as the Africa Development Bank who view it purely from a macro-economic viewpoint as an avenue for spurring economic growth in the country through increased foreign currency earnings. The proponents of the project, however, overlook the several risks that are associated with the project and, thus, do not discuss how these risks will be addressed.
Of major concern among the risks is the issue of climate change. Following some detailed analysis, the IPCC found that, out of the 11 main river basins in Africa, the Zambezi Basin is the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. The Zambezi basin is predicted to experience severe extreme weather events in the form of prolonged drought periods, and extreme flooding events in the future, the worst of all other basins on the continent. Furthermore, the Lower Zambezi is directly affected by developments upstream, with the negative impacts of upstream developments being compounded at Mphanda Nkuwa and downstream. In the past decade, Mozambique has been the worst climate change affected country among all the SADC countries with numerous extreme weather events of cyclones and flooding being experienced. The operations of the upstream dams at Kariba, Kafue and Cahora Bassa, with their large combined storage capacity, will be key to the performance of Mphanda Nkuwa.
Being located downstream of the large dams, the major risk for Mphanda Nkuwa will be during drought periods when the upstream dams may not release water as the upstream countries may prioritize their own needs. The high risk of droughts in the Zambezi basin, wrought by climate change, will have a direct negative impact on the financial and economic viability of the project, as the projected revenue generation and foreign currency earnings will be severely curtailed by prolonged droughts. The withholding of water in upstream dams during droughts will also endanger the ecological flows of the river below Mphanda Nkuwa, with further detrimental effects to prawn fishing in the delta region.
Similarly, in the event of large floods, upstream dams will release water downstream, thereby creating risks of dam failure at Mphanda Nkuwa as well as worsening human safety downstream in the Zambezi valley. The risks to dam safety as a result of flooding may necessitate more expensive design features and higher construction costs. The high risk of loss of human lives and threat to human livelihoods in Mozambique due to floods has been fully demonstrated by numerous catastrophic flood events in the lower Zambezi valley in the past two decades. It therefore follows that Mphanda Nkuwa is highly susceptible to climate change impacts with respect to both droughts and floods.
Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower is touted as clean energy. However, emerging studies worldwide are indicating that dams emit considerable amounts of methane, with methane as a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. At a time when the world is facing huge global warming and climate change risks, the decision to proceed with Mphanda Nkuwa is unfortunate and flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
Mphanda Nkuwa is premised on power being sold to the Southern African countries, with South Africa’s power utility company Eskom being the principal customer for the electricity. It is important to note that over the past 15 years Eskom has been experiencing serious long-standing governance and structural challenges resulting in a chronic debt problem amounting to over ZAR 500 billion, which is equivalent to USD30 billion at the time of writing. Thus, the South African power utility is facing serious financial viability challenges which render it a risky customer on which to base a huge investment of USD 4.5 billion. As a result of its worsening financial position, Eskom has been progressively increasing domestic electricity tariffs in the past decade, with the result that some of its major customers, especially the wealthy ones, have been moving off the grid, thereby creating risks to its revenue collection and also worsening the power utility’s financial viability. Clearly, this issue is a red flag that the proponents of the Mphanda Nkuwa dam project need to seriously interrogate in their market analyses. The delicacy of the viability of Mphanda Nkuwa becomes even more stark when viewed against a background of the current power purchase agreement of Cahora Bassa power to South Africa, whose electricity pricing is highly unfavourable for Mozambique.
Other concerns regarding Mphanda Nkuwa include the claimed increase in energy access for Mozambicans. While on paper the claim is made that 40% of the Mphanda Nkuwa power will be availed to Mozambicans, in reality the impact on access to power for Mozambicans will be insignificant. The dispersed, extensive rural settlement pattern of most of the Mozambicans who currently do not enjoy access to clean energy, and the absence of an extensive grid network renders the claim that Mphanda Nkuwa will increase access to electricity a fallacy. Mozambique lacks an extensive transmission and distribution network and, even with the proposed transmission line, the majority in the rural areas will still remain unconnected to modern electricity. Grid electricity will not be enough to increase access and spur development in the country. At any rate, the cost of the electricity, without subsidy, is unlikely to be affordable for the majority of the citizens.
The Mphanda Nkuwa dam development pays very little attention to the basin ecosystem health and social wellbeing of downstream communities. The operations of the Mphanda Nkuwa dam will significantly alter the flow regime of the downstream area, creating daily fluctuations that will affect aquatic biota as well as the livelihoods of over 200.000 inhabitants who live in the delta and who, to a large extent, rely on the natural resources of the basin. The livelihoods of the communities that reside in the area that will be inundated should not be discounted. Based on what has already transpired and been experienced in other mega infrastructure projects in Tete province and across the country, these people will likely be subjected to forced displacement, curtailed livelihoods, inadequate compensation, State violence and repression and other human rights violations. The people in the basin will be the main losers from this development.
In conclusion, the investment is unlikely to significantly increase industrialization and spur economic growth in Mozambique. Very limited direct permanent employment can be expected to emanate from this hydropower development. No gains will be made in terms of climate change GHG emissions, and sadly more emissions will result from the hydropower dam. The revenue from the electricity sales may not cover the costs of production with potential of failure to service the debt for the dam. Several studies have been done for South Africa and Mozambique that demonstrate that clean energy can be harnessed through wind and solar to reach the widely dispersed rural population at a much faster pace, creating jobs and comparatively having fewer negative social and environment impacts. Against this backdrop, Mozambique has a huge potential to turn to renewable energies, and change its energy trajectory for energy development, distribution and generation. If implemented, the Mphanda Nkuwa will be a millstone around the neck of Mozambique for many generations to come.
*This study was launched in Maputo on July 21st 2022. To get a copy of the study please go to Justiça Ambiental’s office on Rua Willy Waddington, 102, Bairro da Coop, Maputo, or download it from this link: www.drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FXkv0z4PzdOT6yhueYhPqXVCo_9di4Qz
For more information: +258 84 3106010 / jamoz2010@gmail.com
African countries kept in fossil fuel stranglehold by Overseas money
March 3, 2022 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report, published on Monday February 28, once again confirms that the climate crisis disproportionately affects African countries. It further demonstrates that climate impacts will worsen sooner than previously predicted and that worldwide action is more urgent than previously assessed. And yet Africa is host to a growing number of oil, gas and coal projects. New research published today by BankTrack, Milieudefensie, Oil Change International and 19 African partners (1), including 350Africa, Alliance for Empowering Rural Communities (AERC) from Ghana, and WEP Nigeria, reveals the billions of dollars in finance, the majority from European, Asian and North American financial institutions, that are putting the continent in danger of becoming locked into fossil fuels, despite its massive potential for renewable energy. As a result, Africa runs the risk of not being able to make the necessary leap to sustainable energy in time.
Billions of overseas fossil fuel money
Between 2016, following the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, and June 2021, public and private financial institutions poured at least $132 billion in lending and underwriting into 964 gas, oil and coal projects in West, East, Central and Southern Africa. The vast majority of this finance came from financial institutions based outside Africa, both commercial banks and public institutions such as development banks and Export Credit Agencies.
Of the top 15 financial institutions behind this sum, 10 are commercial banks and five are public finance institutions.
The majority of the largest fossil fuel financiers are from North America and Europe, in particular from the United States, the United Kingdom and France. JPMorgan Chase, Standard Chartered, and Barclays are all in the top 5.
The largest single financier of fossil fuel projects and companies in Africa in this period is the China Development Bank.
Those based in North America, Europe and Australia together provided $73 billion in financial support, 55% of the total. Asia-based financial institutions, mostly from China and Japan, provided $42 billion of the total amount, which equals 32%. In contrast, Africa-based financial institutions provided just $15 billion, or 11% of the finance.
The development myth
The fossil fuel industry as well as financiers often claim that fossil fuel projects contribute to Africa’s economic and social development, however the evidence of the projects highlighted in this study, including Mozambique LNG and Offshore Cape Three Points in Ghana, indicate that this is a myth. Despite the many fossil fuel developments, Africa remains the continent with most people living in energy poverty. Poor contract terms, debt traps, and disproportionate ownership by foreign multinationals means the industry mainly serves the interests of companies and nations outside of Africa, with African people and African governments bearing the risks. Instead of bringing development, fossil fuel projects often have severe impacts on local communities and the environment. New fossil fuel projects also risk locking countries into fossil fuel dependency. Stranded assets combined with growing national debt and government deficits, could generate a dangerous ripple effect leading to massive unemployment and rising poverty, locking countries into a vicious cycle of poverty for decades to come.
Risks for the financial sector
For financial institutions, providing financial support to oil, gas and coal projects is also increasingly becoming a risk. With the energy transition accelerating and the production costs of renewable energy rapidly dropping compared to fossils, these projects are increasingly at risk of ending up as stranded assets. Meanwhile, climate change litigation around the world is forcing companies to reduce their emissions output. And the risk of reputational damage has been heightened in recent years by the lack of transparency, corruption, illicit financial flows and serious environmental and human rights violations that characterise this sector in Africa. Further, a failure to limit global warming will present a systemic threat to the whole global financial system.
A Just Transition for Africa
The African partners of this report, as well as recent publications by African networks and civil society organisations, emphasise that the injustices that have plagued the African continent for so long will persist without a Just Transition approach to renewable energy – an approach rooted in environmental, social, political, economic and gender justice. As such, the report puts forward eight Principles for a transformative Just Transition approach to renewables.
In a Just Transition there is eventually no room for fossil fuels. Public and private financial institutions must immediately stop financial support for new oil, gas and coal projects and phase out the existing support for fossil fuels. Instead, finance should be redirected to renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy. A Just Transition furthermore requires a shift of ownership of these renewable energy sources from large multinationals to African communities.
National and international legislation
Such a major turnaround requires strict legislation from governments worldwide on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence to make sure the mistakes of the fossil fuel era will not be repeated, giving African countries the prospect of a green, resilient and sustainable future.
Landry Ninteretse, 350Africa.org Regional Director: “Africans are experiencing severe climate impacts driven by high emissions from the biggest polluters in the developed world. Wealthy countries of Europe, North America, East Asia and Australia, historically big emitters, have not only the responsibility to fund the Just Transition and energy transition plans that African countries are committing to implement, but also to halt any new investments in the fossil fuel industry. It’s time for governments and financial institutions to starve fossil fuels and redirect funding towards this transition to sustainable, clean energy, instead of locking African nations into fossil fuel dependency.”
Henrieke Butijn, Climate campaigner and researcher at BankTrack and lead author of the report: “Commercial banks like JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered can make all the Net-Zero pledges they want but these pledges will not automatically lead to the much-needed short-term steps in ending fossil fuel financing and much less to a true Just Transition. Banks need to start thinking beyond fossil fuel divestment and renewable energy as the new business-as-usual opportunity and focus on what truly benefits African countries and communities now and in the long-term.”
Isabelle Geuskens, Senior Program Officer Just Transition at Milieudefensie and lead author of the report: Africa is the continent with the most renewable energy potential. But it has not been able to tap into it and build towards the more resilient and sustainable future it urgently needs, given the many climate challenges it is and will be facing. Meanwhile our financial institutions and industries continue fuelling the fossil fuel development myth and pour billions of dollars into new fossil fuel projects, locking the continent into fossil fuel dependency and a stranded future. A Just Transition for Africa means stopping fossil fuel finance and contributing to a renewable energy future that benefits African people first and foremost.
Anabela Lemos, Director JA! Justiça Ambiental/FoE Mozambique: “Mozambique and its people are in the tragic situation of being devastated by both the causes and effects of the climate change crisis. One of the major causes of the climate crisis is the extractive industry, and right now the gas rush in Mozambique is causing land grabs, destroyed livelihoods, human rights abuses, militarization and conflict. At the same time, Mozambique is one of the countries most affected by the impacts of climate change, with increasing floods, cyclones and droughts that have already killed, displaced and affected hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable and poorest people. We must break this cycle of injustice and inhumanity, by stopping the gas projects in Mozambique and around the world.”
Aly Marie Sagne, Director and founder of Lumière Synergie pour le Développement (LSD): “Africa is experiencing the severe impacts of the climate crisis while at the same time, African leaders like Senegalese President Sall are championing a false solution about “an energy transition taking into account oil and gas investments”. In the meantime, the African Development Bank, the major Development Finance Institution of the continent, is navigating between green and dirty energy financing options. LSD believes that each degree of additional CO2 emission counts and a just energy transition in Africa should therefore be moving away from fossil fuels. LSD is pushing the AfDB to increase the proportion of renewable energy projects in its portfolio to 70% by 2025!”
Bronwen Tucker, Public Finance Campaign Co-Manager at Oil Change International said: “The resources and profits from fossil fuel projects in Africa have overwhelmingly flowed out of the continent rather than providing energy access or public goods. Now, wealthy countries are locking in a risky and unequal future on the continent by continuing to finance four times as much fossil fuels as renewables with their public finance institutions. These governments must get out of the way of a just transition in Africa by ending their fossil fuel finance and dramatically scaling up their climate finance and debt cancellation instead.”
The African partners are: 350Africa.org, AFIEGO from Uganda, Africa Coal Network, Alerte Congolaise pour l’Environnement et les Droits de l’Homme (ACEDH) from the DRC, Alliance for Empowering Rural Communities (AERC) from Ghana, Centre for Alternative Development from Zimbabwe, Environment Governance Institute (EGI) from Uganda, Friends of the Earth Ghana, Friends of the Earth Togo, Innovation for the Development and Protection of the Environment (IDPE) from the DRC, Justiça Ambiental!/Friends of the Earth Mozambique, Laudato Si’ Movement, Lumière Synergie pour le Développement (LSD) from Senegal, Save Okavango (SOUL), Solidarité pour la Réflexion et Appui au Développement Communautaire (SORADEC) from the DRC, Synergie de Jeunes pour le Développement et les Droits Humains (SJDDH) from the DRC, Women Environmental Programme Nigeria, WoMin and Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA).
Contact:
Henrieke Butijn, Climate campaigner and researcher at BankTrack: henrieke@banktrack.org, +31 649229622. Based in the Netherlands.
Lynda Belaïdi, press officer Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands): +31 6 386 14 206. Based in the Netherlands.
Spokespersons for the highlighted projects are also available. Please reach out to Henrieke Butijn for more information.
This week, something extraordinary happened in the United Kingdom (UK) High Court. Two judges were totally split on deciding whether the UK government’s financing of Mozambique gas is illegal. This is huge news for several reasons, but mainly because it is the first time that a UK High Court judge has found government fossil fuel funding totally unlawful and not aligned with the Paris Agreement, to which the UK government is a signatory.
In December 2021, JA! partners, Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FoE EWNI) were in court, with JA!’s support, for the judicial review of the UK Export Finance’s (UKEF) agreement to provide $1.15 billion to the Mozambique Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) project in Cabo Delgado, led by Total from France.
The split decision means the judicial review has not yet succeeded, and we are awaiting a court order determining the final result. To learn more about the case you can read here and you can read JA! Director Anabela Lemos talk about why it is so important, here.
One judge, Justice Thornton, agreed with FoE EWNI that UKEF acted illegally and had ‘no rational basis’ to conclude that financing the project was consistent with the Paris Agreement. The second judge, Justice Stuart-Smith clearly disagreed with the case, and thought that the financing was totally lawful. He agreed with UKEF’s position that it can finance the project on their basis that the terms of the Paris Agreement are ‘ambiguous’ and at times ‘unworkable’.
But Justice Smith’s decision is entirely inconsistent with the UK government’s public-facing endorsement of the internationally-binding treaty. It is also inconsistent with current government policy on overseas finance.
However, it is not over – we are treating this outcome as a win – with a caveat – seeing as the findings of Justice Thornton were highly significant, and we believe, grounds for an appeal.
This is why JA! And FoE EWNI believes that Justice Thornton’s conclusions are significant:
This case was a critical opportunity to test what compliance with the Paris Agreement looks like. That a High Court judge has deemed UKEF’s actions unlawful means that there may be a basis to call other government decisions into question along similar lines
Justice Thornton’s ruling is internationally significant, because it is considered the first time a judge has said that all flows of finance, to be consistent with the Paris Agreement, must be shown to be in line with the temperature goal to be consistent with the treaty
There are potential international implications, particularly for other export credit agencies that have relied on the plausibility of the same climate assessments to justify their own investments in the Mozambique LNG project
She concluded that UKEF didn’t consider all the emissions from the project and that because of this and other mistakes, they had no rational basis to conclude the decision to support the project was in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. She also found that the information presented to the Ministers making the financing decision was not sufficient for them to adequately understand the climate impacts of the project and their scale.
Research by Friends of the Earth and the New Economics Foundation shows that the Mozambique LNG project will produce between 3.3 and 4.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent over its lifecycle of 37 years, more than the combined annual greenhouse gas emissions of all 27 EU countries.
On top of all of this, the Mozambique gas industry has been central to conflict, human rights abuses and has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans. People in Cabo Delgado have lost their lands and livelihoods as a result of its development. Our country is one of the most vulnerable to climate impacts that continue to be exacerbated created by projects like Mozambique LNG and the fossil fuel industry.
JA! Director Anabela Lemos says:
“The fact that a high court judge totally agreed with us that the UK government’s financing of Mozambique gas is illegal is important. This is something that has never happened before in UK courts, and is showing the fossil fuel industry and its financiers that climate justice activists from Mozambique and around the world are right. JA! and our partners will continue to fight this project, and any other fossil fuel project that devastates the climate and people.”
Our friends at FoE EWNI say:
“Friends of the Earth maintains its view that a claim should succeed where any High Court Justice identifies unlawful conduct, but the court has not yet confirmed whether it has or hasn’t ruled in the group’s favour. A majority view was not reached by both judges, because the second judge, Justice Smith’s conclusions starkly contrasted those of his counterpart. This means that overall consensus has not been reached by the whole court. In the event that Friends of the Earth’s claim is considered unsuccessful, an appeal is considered inevitable to reach a definitive outcome.”
Now that overall consensus has not been reached by the whole court, FoE EWNI will inevitably appeal to reach a definitive outcome, and cancel the UKEF financing for good.
This case has shown that civil society is not going to let UKEF and other fossil fuel financiers get away with their actions. They have thought they could do this for ages, but people and movements from across the world are fighting back, including through legal action against companies and governments who continue fuelling the climate crisis and human rights violations.
The worst has happened – Russia has gone to war with Ukraine, and after the growing death toll, what makes this an even greater travesty is that it could have been avoided a long time ago. But Europe’s and the US’ greed for fossil fuels didn’t just allow it to happen, but is a central factor. In 2021, Russian LNG made up 20% of Europe’s LNG imports. In November 2021 alone, the United States imported approximately 17.9 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia. In May 2021 the US imported 26.2 million barrels of crude oil from Russia, its highest ever import volume in the period of one month.
It was only after 137 Ukrainians were killed at the end of Thursday, and thousands of protesters had to taken to the streets of Moscow and other cities, that US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed more severe sanctions on Russian banks and fossil fuel companies. Prior to this, it was just threats. But did Russia ever pander to these threats? Of course not, because it knows that at the end of the day, Western countries will want to continue benefiting from its fossil fuel resources.
For example, in the Angoche Basin in Mozambique, ExxonMobil, the 5th largest US company, has a joint concession with Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil company to explore for fossil fuels. That joint venture was agreed upon in 2015, after many many years of US threats of sanctioning Russia. This venture will likely not be affected by these sanctions, since ExxonMobil is a private company.
If the US and its allies had really wanted to, they could have contributed to the prevention of this war much earlier. One hundred and ninety Russian troops had been stationed along the Ukrainian border for months, the result of years of spoken threats. But, no, Western countries wanted gas and they wanted it now, regardless of the implications. Their threats of sanctions on Russia were a joke considering they were benefiting Russia’s economy for years by purchasing its gas. Even after the promises made at COP26, they continued to invest in this fossil fuel which trumped their lying rhetoric of going to any lengths to protect their own people, and the population of Ukraine against what they call in public, the monster that is Russia. Europe and the US are not just hypocritical, but complicit in the destruction of entire cities, arrests of protestors and deaths of civilians, the number of which we can only hope, will not grow.
Just like in many violent and fatal conflicts around the world, fossil fuels have contributed to this devastation. The world needs to stop using fossil fuels when there are more than enough sources for renewable energy to keep the world turning. Gas and oil are not just killing the earth and the climate – from the Ukraine to Mozambique, Tanzania to Venezuela, fossil fuel companies are killing innocent people, ruining communities and pushing economies into deep debt. No more fossil fuels! No more war!
This week, Total announced that in 2021 it made 15 billion Euros, the biggest profits any company has ever made in French history. They are unashamedly boasting about this money, money that will go to wealthy European shareholders, money that they have made at the expense of the climate and people and the environment in the global South.
Total is one of the biggest players in Mozambique’s gas industry, leading the Mozambique liquid Natural Gas (LNG) project and is constructing the onshore Afungi LNG Park, which houses the aerodrome, treatment plants, port, offices and other support facilities for all the projects. To make way for the 70 square kilometre park, the company displaced over 550 families, thousands of people, from surrounding communities.
Even though extraction hasn’t even happened yet, fishing communities who had been living mere metres from the ocean for generations were displaced to a ‘relocation village’ more than 10 km inland, with no way of getting to the sea. Farmers who had now lost their land, were given small, inadequate pieces of land far from the relocation houses they had been given.
Their ‘consultation’ process with these communities has been a joke. In meetings between communities and companies, community leaders – many of whom have developed financially beneficial relationships with the industry – are present, and people avoided speaking out for fear of losing their compensation, or of physical threats. This is exacerbated by communities’ lack of basic knowledge law, thereby unable to demand their rights.
JA! works closely with communities on the ground in the gas region, and have seen how the only jobs created for locals were menial, unskilled and temporary. Communities’ complaints to Total about irregular compensation payments were waved away. And now that Total’s project was paused in April 2021, they have stopped compensation payments completely.
The project will also have irreversible impacts on the climate and destroy coral reefs and endangered species of the UNESCO Biosphere, the Quirimbas Archipelago.
But Total’s crimes go beyond Mozambique, to many other Southern countries. One of their planned projects, the East Africa crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) has been the subject of major campaigns by civil society and even a lawsuit in France by Friends of the Earth France. According to the StopEACOP Campaign:
“Stretching for nearly 1,445 kilometers, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) would have disastrous consequences for local communities, for wildlife and for the entire planet – we have to stop it. The project threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land. It poses significant risks to water resources and wetlands in both Uganda and Tanzania – including the Lake Victoria basin, which over 40 million people rely upon for drinking water and food production. The pipeline would rip through numerous sensitive biodiversity hotspots, and risk significantly degrading several nature reserves crucial to the preservation of threatened elephant, lion and chimpanzee species.”
In Myanmar, Total was providing the oppressive military junta with the majority of its revenue, from its Yadana gas project. The military junta is known for ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population, and mass human rights violations including rape, sexual abuse, torture and disappearances of protestors. Recently Total claimed it would stop its operations in Myanmar, but again, it will be getting away with the destruction it has left in is wake.
Total has also been active in the Taoudeni basin of Mali in the Sahel since 1998. Since 2013, over 3000 French troops have been in Mali, and 4 other Sahel countries, with France using the same rhetoric as they and Rwanda have done in Mozambique: to rid the area of ‘jihadists’.
In Yemen, the Balhaf LNG site of which Total owns 39% was exposed for housing the base for the Shabwani Elite, an UAE-backed tribal militia since 2016. Officially a counter-terrorism group, they have unofficially become known as a group created to protect fossil fuel interests. The site also has also been exposed to house UAE notorious ‘secret prisons’ holding Yemeni detainees.
in the week of the announcement, many organisations from around the world held a social media storm, where tweeted about Total’s actions and ‘hijacked’ their twitter, facebook and linkedIn accounts.
It is inhumane that Total and its shareholders use their profits to have oysters and champagne in Paris’ restaurants, while this money comes by violating the rights of human beings, their bodies, the environment and the climate.
In Mozambique, Total must stop the gas exploitation entirely, but it cannot slink away from the mess it has already made. It must take responsibility and provide reparations for all the lives destroyed, all the lands grabbed, and the livelihoods lost.
Total must stop its destruction all over the global south, and the world, but that by itself does not erase years of abuse and dispossession overnight! Total and the fossil fuel industry gas industry must be held accountable for the impacts and human rights violations faced by affected communities and be obliged to fully compensate the communities and remediate the damage caused!
15 years ago, when the Mozambican government signed the contract with VALE, almost everybody in Mozambique believed that coal would develop the country. This investigation exposes part of the destruction that VALE Moçambique is preparing to leave behind now that it has announced an agreement to sell its projects to Vulcan Minerals for US $270 million.
Located in the Province of Tete, in Mozambique, the Moatize Coal Mine was officially inaugurated in May 2011. It is owned by VALE Moçambique and Mitsui Corp and it produces 11.3 million tonnes of coal per annum.
In its 2009 annual report, VALE stated that it had 1.087 million tonnes of coal resources (both proven and probable) across all its mines and projects, of which 954 million were in the Moatize mine. The report also stated that the projected depletion date of the project was 2046.
In January 2021, VALE announced plans to pull out of the project. Then, in December 2021, VALE announced it had entered into a binding agreement with Vulcan Minerals – a company that is part of the Jindal Group – to sell the Moatize coal mine and the Nacala Logistics Corridor for US$ 270 million. However, this transaction can only take place if the Government of Mozambique approves it.
But in those brown, black concession areas held by the transnational company in the hot province of Tete, we found a troubling pattern of violence, land-grabbing and death that completely contradicts VALE’s claim of “responsibly sourced” coal.
Between 2009 and 2010, VALE resettled 1,365 families – in the Cateme and 25 de Setembro resettlements areas – in order to install the Moatize mine. Along the Nacala Corridor, an additional 2,000 families were resettled. Most of the families resettled by VALE relied on subsistence agriculture and cattle raising in order to survive.
The resettlement areas were plagued by a number of problems which have already been widely documented, such as unsafe housing (e.g. faulty infrastructure and poorly installed electrical and sewage systems), andland unsuitable for subsistence agriculture (due to bad quality of soil, no access to water and being far from markets). Although these problems have long been denounced by affected communities and various organizations at national and international level, the vast majority of them are yet to be resolved.
The Mozambican Police (PRM), including its Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR), have been “used” by VALE in several occasions. They have dispersed and repressed protesters by beating them up or shooting at them with rubber bullets and even live ammunition, and they have arbitrarily detained local brickmakers (a.k.a. oleiros) – who still seek compensation for losing their livelihoods.
To make matters worse, local journalists are being intimidated and threatened by local authorities – including the Mayor of Moatize, Carlos Portimão – and told not to report on these issues.
“If you want to report about VALE, talk with its directors, not with the locals nor with the oleiros.” – local radio directors are telling their reporters.
To make place for open-pit mining, the people who lived inside the concession areas were “forcefully removed” from their homes, from the small family farms that kept them fed, from the rivers that provided them with plenty of water and from the river banks where they produced clay bricks for a living. Today, “pushed” outside the fence, these people, along with tens of thousands of others who already lived in the outskirts of the mine, are facing a very harsh reality: there is no water left. The rivers that used to provide them with water for farming, cattle and other basic needs, have either been diverted to supply water to the mine, polluted or simply burried by tons of sand – a shameful and blatant violation of their human rights.
Unlike what some may think, the number of people severely affected by VALE goes way beyond those who have been resettled and the thousands of families who live in Bagamoyo, Nhantchere, Primeiro de Maio or Liberdade – the neighbourhoods that border the mine, under a permanent cloud of dust and whose inhabitants get sistematically sick from VALE’s pollution. The oleiros are a good example of a different kind of highly impacted group. Even though VALE has compensated some of those who were forced to hand over their land to the mining company, many others claim they were left out of the agreements.
In 2019, for example, when VALE started the expansion of the Moatize IIIMine, the company cut Primeiro de Maio, Liberdade and Paiol’s access to the Moatize River, affecting brickmakers and peasants from those communities. Since then, several meetings were held between the affected people, VALE and the government. More recently VALE changed the tone and started stating that no compensation is owed to any brickmakers. While this process is dragging on, more than 4,000 oleiros are having a very hard time supporting themselves and their families.
In the Province of Tete, with the abetment of the Mozambican government, roughly half a million people are currently abandoned to their fate: to live in a deadly ring of coal for (at least) 35 years.
VALE’s arrival and the communities’ downfall
Zita, a forty-some year old widow, told us she lived with her late husband Refo Agostinho – held by many as the best brickmaker in Moatize – before they were gradually forced to give their land away to VALE. Mother of four, she and her husband Refo had brick making as their main source of income. The money was used to feed their children, pay for school and cover other needs. “They all grew up supported by money from brickwork.”
In 1993, both unemployed at the time, with no one to support them and already with a daughter to raise (the eldest), Zita and Refo decided to make a life plan and thus guarantee their family’s livelihood. It was then that they began to work in pottery and brick production near the Paiol area. At first, they were generating around 30,000 Meticais (approximately US$470) per month (depending on the season). Soon, to meet demand, they had to hire workers.
“First we had five workers, then ten and then fifteen… Payment depended on the kind of work and on each worker’s results. Some workers could make 3,000 bricks a day for about 900 to 1,000 Meticais (approximately US$15). With the money from brick making we could buy curry, we were able to build our own house, we also bought a car. At home, Refo ran other businesses. With the bricks, he set up mills and he was a welder and a panel beater too. We also used our car to transport the bricks to where our clients needed them… For 20 years we developed this activity”.
Refo died of stress and grief: he had a heart attack
“Refo lost his life after things changed. VALE took everything from us. In Chipanga, where we used to make bricks, our property was large: one hectare. My machamba [farm] was elsewhere, in Canchoeiro. VALE took us out of there but they did not want to pay us compensation (for the land), nor for having us cease our activities. They would say process X had to go to position Y, but they refused to give us money, always talking but without a solution. So, they [the brickmakers] had to organise demonstrations to receive the money. When they protested, the police arrived, intimidated him and took him to jail. He stayed (in jail) for a week, then left and continued to fight until VALE compensated us. I’m not sure how much money it was, but I heard it was about 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940).”
But the brickmaker’s life was never the same again. “After losing the land where he worked, Refo began to suffer from stomach aches and having blood pressure problems, and with that, he died. Now, I support the children and they all go to school. I depend of a single mill, which he left to us”.
Tampered community survey lists
We were in the District of Moatize when the representative of the Nhankweva brickmakers commission, Nordino Timba Chaúque, told us he was fed up with VALE’s neverending promises and unfulfilled agreements with local communities over the years. “The company is doing things the community doesn’t like.”
They started to list the brickmakers and peasants who had to be compensated in Nhankweva and other neighbourhoods in 2020, but the process is still unfinished. “A long time ago, we met with VALE to discuss these payments. The company promised us that it would pay us all – a group of 571 brickmakers – and each of us would receive 125,000 Meticais (approximately US$1960). We stopped our activities. They only paid for the trucks that took our bricks from the place they occupied to somewhere else. We were not compensated. This Wednesday, again, the company told us to come back on December 22, 2021.”
But from one Wednesday to the next, the situation remains unresolved, and now VALE says it will no longer pay any compensation to these brickmakers.
“About 500 or so people, each received 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940) to stop their activities, but they still had to pay us 125,000 Meticais each (approximately US$1960) – the value of the compensation. At one point VALE just said that it no longer recognized us and that we are not part of the registration lists.
VALE subcontracted a company – MP – to carry out the registration. The people from that company were trained and qualified professionals. But later on – in order to stall or avoid payment – VALE told us that those lists, made by their people, had been tampered by infiltrated people from the community! VALE surveyed Chipanga in 2009. They know the job. One cannot say that there were infiltrated people from the community because there were local authorities in place: government staff, technical staff from the municipality too. So, where and how did the people infiltrate?! The entire local authorities from all the neighbourhoods followed this process” – said another brickmaker.
VALE and the government keep playing hot potato. “These are VALE’s maneuvers to avoid paying us. They are the ones who used to do the registration, but they chose MP to do this registration. So, they must have the numbers. We have 3,000 people [on our list].” – says the President of the brickmakers commission.
Former employees of MP confirm that VALE claims to have 5,000 people on its list and accuses the company’s employees of tampering with the numbers. According to them, this is but a maneuver by VALE to stall the process. “We were even expelled! They confiscated our private phones and searched them. They accused us of putting extra people on the lists in exchange for money, which is not true.”
Little to nothing has been done to address all the 2008, 2010 or 2012 pending processes and cases regarding compensations, new land allocations and social projects
Paulo Vítor Maferrano, 41 years old, from Chipanga, Moatize, claims that he too made around 30,000 Meticais (approximately US$470) per month.
“Chipanga is our area. The mining company started occupying it in 2008. In the beginning, VALE said that it would not occupy Chipanga, so people who were removed from other areas came to Chipanga to make their machambas. But suddenly, VALE started moving people out of Chipanga too, which meant they had to negotiate with those people too. 2021 is about to end and people have not been compensated yet.”
Paulo’s reality is no different from that of other brickmakers. He was also left without his machamba and without his brickworks – his main source of income. “We already tried to send the documents. We went to the government, and VALE really did say that it would not pay us. So we tried to turn to other forums. (…) VALE only started working on this specific area in May 2021, these are the new lands VALE is expanding to. Neither the company nor we know the extent of the mine concession. When VALE arrived, they said that first they were going to give us 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940) so we would leave our fields and stop our activities immediately, and then they would give us 125,000 Meticais (approximately US$1960) in compensation. But so far, they have not given us anything.”
Police violence against brickmakers and local communities
Cases of police violence – carried out by State forces to protect the interests of the mining company – date back to the beginning of the project. People have been arrested, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and sometimes real bullets and tear gas has also been used on citizens, including on pregnant women and children.
On the 20th of November 2021, four members of the Nhantchere community, who had been representing families whose homes have cracks on the walls caused by the mine explosions, were unjustly detained and remained in prison for 3 days. Shortly afterwards, on December 23rd, two brickmakers were detained for five days during a meeting where they were debating with their community what to do about VALE’s refusal to pay compensation to the expropriated brickmakers and peasants. Community members who play leading roles in the negotiation processes with VALE tend to suffer increasing reprisals and intimidation, including arbitrary and illegal detentions.
Vasco was shot inside his own home
On the 6th of May 2021, tired of VALE’s lack of interest in resolving the compensations and payments owed to people from the Primeiro de Maio neighbourhood who lost land and access to the river, a group of brickmakers and peasants occupied Section 6 of the mine and blocked the road that grants access to it, demanding answers from the company. This demonstration ended peacefully, when brickmakers reached an agreement with representatives of VALE and the government – who went to the site – and agreed that the matter would be debated the following day with the entire community, in the neighbourhood square.
But the agreed meeting on the 7th of May 2021, in Primeiro de Maio’s square, was a ‘ambush’ set up by VALE and the local government. Representatives of VALE and the local government did not come to the site. Instead, the Police – including agents of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) – showed up at the square and decided to intervene by repressing the community that was lawfully demanding its rights.
Vasco was at home. At the square, just outside his door, the population was gathering, eager to hear what the company and the government would have to say about their destroyed farms and lost lands. Neighbourhood leaderships insisted on summoning all the people in the community to await the arrival of government and VALE representatives.
“Suddenly, we realised UIR and the people were moving from one place to another. There were gunshots. They threw tear gas. People were running around, so I decided to pick up my 6 year old son from school immediately. When I got back home, we got inside the house and I shut the door. But everytime they have a meeting here at the headquarters, they come to borrow my chairs, and that day I had lent the chairs to my neighbour. So, amidst the havoc, the neighbour came to return the chairs. He knocked on the door, I peeked out the window and only saw him. I didn’t know he was accompanied by a UIR agent. I opened the door and he shot me in the stomach. No questions asked. Nothing. He just said ‘these are the agitators’ and fired the gun at me.”
Vasco was abandoned and left to die
“I was in pain. My 6-year-old son managed to take my phone out of my pocket and called his mother to inform her of the situation. His mother called a taxi driver and they managed to take me to the local hospital, but due to the serious situation I had to be urgently transferred to the city hospital [in Tete], where a doctor helped me promptly. If it hadn’t been quick, I don’t know what would have happened. I arrived unconscious and only woke up after the operation. I had a bandage around my belly, when I tried to find out I was informed that they had operated on my belly and that I had ‘dirt’ inside. They had to operate to remove it, I was in hospital for 7 days.”
Vasco had black particles inside his body – ‘dirt’. “Yes, the doctor informed me. It was because of the bullet I got in my stomach. It could even be because of the dust we inhale every day.”
Unemployed at the time, Vasco was applying for a job opening. “They called me and I was still in the hospital, but because I was in no condition to go, I asked them to give me another week, and they accepted.” Still weak from both being shot and the surgery, he was called in for the interview. At the time, with no choice, and after a long time looking for a job, he decided that, weak or not, he was going to show up at the interview. “It was sad. I was called in, and I needed to find a way to earn some money while my wound was healing. I went there but I was still unwell.”
While Vasco was in hospital, his wife sustained the family by selling cookies and other casual work from home. But since he was shot, Vasco’s health is not the same. He can’t do tasks like weeding or carrying water, and at work he has to maneuver the car using the seat belt.
“When I put on the seat belt, it goes through my belly here, and I still have stitches. I have been feeling pain whenever there are changes in temperature or when it is about to rain. The people who did this to me were not held responsible and I did not have any support. I would like to point out that the government was aware of what happened to me, and nobody came here to, at least, see how I was doing these days. So far, I have no information or response from them”.
Prosecuting VALE
At least two cases were brought up against the mining company VALE Moçambique regarding access to public interest information: one by the non-governmental organization Justiça Ambiental (JA!), and the other by the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM).
JA! demanded that “VALE’s environmental monitoring reports between 2013 and 2020 be made available, as they are public documents that should be widely known, especially by the communities that have to live with VALE’s operations on a daily basis.”
VALE claims to be a “transparent company” but denies access to documents of public interest, trying to argue in different ways against court decisions that, more than once, went Justiça Ambiental’s and OAM’s way. In the appeal filed by the mining company, VALE argues that “there is no doubt that the reports that contain the information requested by the applicant […] are of a confidential nature”.
This argument was refuted by Justiça Ambiental, who stood its ground.
Regarding case No. 26/2020, the Administrative Court – through Ruling No. 130/2020, of December 30th 2020 – gave reason to the civil society organization, concluding that “the intended information cannot be classified as confidential” since “it has to do with mining operations, namely, whether or not they are harmful to the environment” and reiterated that “the Constitution of the Republic defines the environment as a citizen’s right and determines everyone’s duties regarding this right”. Yet again, VALE appealed this decision.
OAM, in turn, asked the court to subpoena the mining company VALE Moçambique, S.A., to make available various information of public interest, including the Memorandums of Understanding and other agreements signed between the Government, VALE Moçambique and the affected communities; information regarding the total amount of taxes paid by VALE to the Mozambican State; information on ongoing resettlement processes; among others.
The Administrative Court of the City of Maputo agreed with the OAM and mandated VALE to provide the information in question. Not satisfied with this decision, VALE filed an appeal. Once the process was filed and the allegations and counter-claims presented were analyzed, the Counselor Judges of the First Chamber of the Administrative Court – through Ruling No. 119/2020, of December 15, 2020, referring to case No. 131/2020 – decided to dismiss the appeal filed by the mining company, for lack of legal basis to reverse the appealed decision, and agreed with the previous decision that condemned VALE for violating the right to information of public interest.
VALE S.A.’s posture (and VALE Moçambique is no exception) in regards to providing any relevant information of their impacts is renowned. Publicly, and in meetings, they will tell you they are keen to share any information requested by citizens and/or civil society organizations, but they never do.
In April 2021, during the General Shareholders’ Meeting of VALE S.A. in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some company’s shareholders voted not to approve the management report, as it omitted important information about the project in Mozambique. These shareholders also requested numerous documents of public interest, including documents requested by Mozambican civil society organizations regarding VALE Moçambique’s activities in Moatize. Senior executives of the company pledged to send the requested documents, but these promises, too, were not kept.
Despite so much reluctance to inform the general public about the real impacts of its activities, VALE strives to greenwash its image and constantly claims to be a transparent, ethical and honest company.
Continuous and systematic Human Rights violations
In Moatize, thick black clouds blanket the skies every time dynamite is blasted in the mine. The air is polluted, the surfaces are always covered with black dust, and maize flour can no longer be left to dry in the open air. The roads, used by VALE’s trucks, are a source of dust too.
There is a great lack of water, and the water that comes out of the tap is black like coal. The company closed, diverted, or polluted the rivers that fed thousands of people. Animals and plants are struggling too. The cattle were left without pasture and are surviving on garbage dumps scattered throughout the city of Moatize. Walking through the city, you may even get confused, and think that dogs are unusually large in the area, with leashes and all. But no, it’s cattle turned stray.
With the violent and almost daily explosions in the mines of Moatize, more than 1,000 houses in the neighbourhoods of Primeiro de Maio, Nhantchere, Liberdade and Bagamoyo have cracked walls, and many have already collapsed. These cracks in the houses of the mine’s neighbouring districts have become a registered trademark of the company in the area. The affected families have for years been demanding compensation for these damages and a decent resettlement in a place where they do not have to live with this situation.
The surroundings of VALE’s mine are also full of tragic stories that show the true face of their so-called “development”.
In September 2014, little Ester, from Primeiro de Maio, lost her life while playing in a hole opened by VALE. She was accidentally buried alive by a dump truck hired by the mining company. All that VALE did was to give the child’s familly 5,000 Meticais to help with the funeral expenses. In November 2020, in Cateme, a child died and four others were seriously injured while playing in their grandfather’s machamba, inside the resettlement built by VALE. The children found a buried object: an old war mine that exploded. Another tragic case concerns a group of children who were bathing in an open hole abandoned by VALE, which had been filled with water during the rainy season. Two children drowned because they didn’t know the hole was so deep. Neither the company nor the government were held responsible for any of these cases.
Open-pit mining: sky-high levels of pollution and public health endangerment
“Here, when people cough, black stuff comes out (of their throats), and the doctors say it’s mine dust. VALE, the government and a team from the hospital came to test people for a week. They saw that they had a cough, and that they were spitting out black things. Hence, the company never came here to give us an answer”, said one of the community members.
The levels of water and air pollution in Moatize put thousands of people at risk, many of them ending up in hospitals with respiratory problems, acute cough, tuberculosis. But for the mining company only profit matters. In 2021, the pollution situation in Moatize worsened.
According to laboratory analyses carried out on water (Liberdade neighbourhood) in 2021 at JA’s request, water and air pollution are three times above the national and international limits established by law. For example, Cadmium (Cd) levels of 0.009 mg/l were recorded in VALE’s concession area, while the levels considered admissible by Mozambique and the World Health Organization are 0.003 mg/l. Cadmium is a heavy metal that causes damage to the nervous system and can cause disturbances in fetal development, even in low concentrations.
According to hospital sources, most of the people treated at the Moatize Hospital are diagnosed with tuberculosis.
“Every day, here at the hospital, we receive a greater number of people who are diagnosed with tuberculosis due to the pollution caused by VALE here in Moatize. Pollution is affecting a lot of people, this company is hurting us, even I am feeling sick. I saw many people drinking dirty water from the river, the water is not coming as it used to. With Section 6, that VALE has just opened, all the dirt, chemicals that leave the mine, flow into the Moatize river, up to where the Revúboé river flows. This is just wrong.”
*This investigation was conducted in partnership with Mozambican NGO Justiça Ambiental JA!
Anabela Lemos says Mozambique should not move forward with gas projects
This interview was originally published in Jornal Savana in Portuguese on 10th December, 2021.
At the beginning of November, a great controversy erupted, mainly on social networks, as a result of statements made by Anabela Lemos, an environmental activist, who argued that Mozambique should not proceed with the natural gas exploration project. But what arguments support this position, at a time when most social sectors in Mozambique, including civil society, see gas as a great opportunity to develop the country and fight poverty?
In an interview conducted by Boaventura Monjane*, Anabela Lemos, founder of “Justiça Ambiental” and one of the loudest voices in the environmental movement, responds to the question, arguing that insisting on this type of extractivist mega-projects will always contribute to serious violations of human rights, will cause irreversible damage to the environment, and will deepen the climate crisis. She also claims that Mozambique’s position at COP26 was largely inadequate.
At the beginning of November, in an interview to a television channel, Anabela Lemos stated and defended that Mozambique should not proceed with the natural gas exploration project in Cabo Delgado. Her statements provoked several reactions, mainly on social media. Can you explain this position?
By choosing to explore natural gas, Mozambique is following the same path followed by other African countries such as Nigeria and Libya that have also tried to develop through the exploration of fossil fuels. In all the examples we have on the continent, these projects have led to an increase in corruption, conflict and militarisation, national debt, poverty and a general deterioration in the standard of living of local populations, without having generated sufficient benefits for the country. This is not a position of radical activists. Even the World Bank has acknowledged, in its Extractive Industry Report, that the oil and gas industries in developing countries have not only failed to improve the lives of the poorest people, but have made them even worse off.
Mozambique is one of the countries most affected by climate change, and is looking to boost one of the industries that contributes most to this crisis, in the midst of a global movement calling to end the exploitation of fossil fuels. This is a contradiction and therefore we have to fight for our right to say no to environmentally destructive and socially unjust projects.
What do you mean by the right to say no?
The fight for the right to say no aims to challenge the usual way in which mega-projects are allowed in our countries, where public consultations or negotiations are carried out in the final stages of the project only to agree on small details and compensations. The right to say no aims to bring about a drastic change in the way affected people and civil society are brought into these debates. If the option of saying no is on the table, it is an indication that the people have power, and this opens up space for creating real debates about the best paths for development for the country.
This right started being demanded in several popular struggles of communities directly affected by extractivist projects, whose negative impacts affect these communities. People lose their land, livelihoods, access to rivers and the sea, ability to support themselves and to survive. The environment is destroyed and the people who survive are harassed. When everything is exhausted, corporations leave, leaving a trail of destruction and a huge debt for the State and the people.
For us perhaps the greatest reference to the right to say no is an inspiring struggle of a community in South Africa, in the Eastern Cape province. The community association Amadiba Crisis Committee, together with a team of lawyers and a South African civil society organisation, took its Ministry of Mineral Resources to court. And they got the higher court to recognise that a titanium mining project in that region could not proceed without the consent of the local community.
Does JA! fight against any and all development projects? After all, didn’t the industrialised countries develop with these types of projects?
We say no to any project that we believe will bring more negative than positive impacts for the people and the environment. Unfortunately, we are part of a national and global context in which governments are captured by the interests of large transnational corporations, and therefore the projects that are coming to our country will invariably benefit local and global elites, as they are not intended to solve the needs of the people.
Regarding the argument that industrialised countries developed with these types of projects, this is a misconception. European countries, for example, controlled virtually every component of the global value chain. They got rich from patents, from research, from manufacturing the equipment, from exploring, processing, and transporting resources. They became rich because they controlled and owned all the significant companies and markets at that particular time. And they got rich mainly because they colonised and exploited countries in the Global South. No African country that is already exploiting its fossil resources has developed from the exploitation of these, as it controls absolutely nothing in the value chain or any other critical component of this industry. So, regarding the gas, we’re actually being exploited once again.
Regarding the climate crisis, there has been a lot of debate about the right of less developed countries, such as Mozambique, to exploit their fossil fuel reserves to boost their economic growth. Don’t you think that industrialised countries should have a greater responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, rather than countries that have contributed little to these emissions?
Certainly. That is why we speak of historical responsibility, because it was the countries of the North that created the climate crisis, and the countries of the South, such as Mozambique, are suffering the greatest impacts. This means that the past and present actions of industrialised countries are creating damage and losses as we saw with cyclones Idai and Kenneth, with direct and indirect economic losses projected at $3 billion.
As a country, we don’t have to lead the way in terms of climate action. But this does not mean that in Mozambique we should explore gas or any other fossil fuel, and contribute to global emissions. We can pretend we’re fighting for a right, but given the climate crisis and the other impacts I’ve already mentioned, we’re basically fighting for the right to jump into an abyss.
But we can be an example of a country that is looking to its future and the future of planet earth, by moving towards a more sustainable economic model, while demanding that the Global North drastically reduce its emissions and pay the South a climate debt. This financing will allow the country to develop and be able to provide clean, just and decentralised energy to the entire population.
In Mozambique, and in many other African countries, energy poverty still affects the majority of the population. Many families still depend on polluting energy sources that are very harmful to health, such as firewood and charcoal. How does JA! propose to resolve these issues in Mozambique?
In a country like ours, the priority is certainly to create a strategy of decentralisation and diversification of energy sources, analyse the country’s energy potential by different areas and geographies, and build a system based on justice and the right of everyone to have access to a safe, healthy and clean energy source. Part of these studies already exist, completed by JA! and other researchers, but they continue to be largely ignored.
In September 2021, Friends of the Earth Africa published a “Just Recovery Renewable Energy Plan for Africa” which shows that it is not only urgent but completely feasible to reduce emissions, transform our energy system and make a just transition in our continent.
The plan, based on the work of renowned academic Dr Sven Teske of the University of Sydney, outlines how the continent can dismantle existing dirty energy systems and achieve 100% renewable energy for all by 2050. This plan would require more than 300 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy by 2030, as agreed by the African Union, and over 2000 GW by 2050. The plan also highlights the potential to create 7 million new jobs in renewable energy on the African continent. It is not just a technical plan, but a vision of how renewable energy systems can serve people and protect biodiversity.
Don’t you think that a lot could be done if each of us, individually, had greater environmental awareness? I’m talking about reducing consumption levels, not throwing garbage on the floor, saving water – with these types of actions wouldn’t we be able to achieve major changes?
It is always good for individuals to practice sustainable habits and protect the environment. But individual actions, as important as they are, must somehow aim at more structural changes in society, because if they are not intended to bring about a general change in how we understand the system and what attitude we take, they have no real impact.
Furthermore, we need to recognize the ecological footprint (a method of calculating the pressure that the human population, and each of us in particular, exerts on natural resources and the planet) of the majority of the Mozambican population; with the exclusion of our own elites, it is absurdly small. The huge ecological impact of industries makes any action at the individual level completely meaningless. Mozal, for example, consumes more water and electricity than all domestic consumption in the city of Maputo. And it is a company that did not even pay dividends to the Mozambican State throughout 2019.
So the big problem here is that industrial consumption and the linear model of extraction (production – use – disposal) are not compatible with ecological balance. We need circular systems that are capable of reusing all the components produced, as raw material in other processes. Of course, reducing consumption levels, especially in rich countries and our domestic elites, is fundamental for this to be viable.
Looking at the impacts of extractivist mega-projects in Mozambique, many claim that their positive impacts are not felt due to high levels of corruption. How do you see this issue of corruption?
The debate about corruption in our country is on the rise and we all see the impacts of corruption on a daily basis. This scenario must be urgently reversed and we need to fight it at all levels. But we also need to recognise that corruption is intrinsically related to the economic viability of extractive projects. If it weren’t for corruption, they wouldn’t advance. Buying off some government officials to sponsor this type of investment project will always be cheaper than bearing all the real costs of fair compensation for land expropriation, decent wages, damage to health, restoration of the degraded environment, and the impacts of climate change, among others things.
By solving the problem of corruption, would it be possible for Mozambique to be able to exploit the gas in a way that would benefit the country and the majority of Mozambicans?
The problem of corruption will not be resolved within the current development model that we have in the country. But beyond that, there are economic trends around fossil fuels that are undeniable, for anyone seeking to examine. Coal is a declining resource, with several countries (including China) already with divestment strategies and phasing out coal projects. Fifteen years ago when we started betting everything on coal, the scenarios were absurdly optimistic. We believe that gas extraction will follow a very similar path to coal. According to calculations by the Global Energy Monitor, there are already close to $100 billion in gas investments at risk of becoming stranded assets. Coal had a slow transition to become an unproductive asset, but with gas this risk will be faster and more abrupt, because it is a less labour-intensive industry.
As if this were not enough, current gas exploration contracts provide enormous benefits to private companies during the first decades, and only later will the country gain from exploration. All of this should be worrying for Mozambique, as we have major infrastructure problems, socio-economic instability and conflicts that are causing delays, putting gas projects even more at risk of becoming unproductive assets and having a minimal contribution to the country’s economy. Other studies such as those carried out by CIP, which do not focus on the risk of unproductive assets, still project weak gas contributions to the country’s economy, due to tax exemptions, tax havens, low gas prices, high operating costs, among others. And this, of course, without even counting the costs of militarisation and security that will fall on the State.
At the national level, some see environmentalists or human rights defenders as having anti-development agendas or accuse them of being manipulated by outside interests. How do you, Anabela Lemos and JA! deal with these criticisms?
The reason for the attacks on JA! because of our views is because our views are very upsetting to the interests of the elites – both national and international. There is no interest in having in-depth debates on these issues because then we will arrive at the undeniable facts that these projects do not bring development. There is a lot of information available and studies to be done that confirm our positions.
We are always available to debate views and alternatives, but we don’t waste too much time on strategies that are based on hearsay and misinformation and are intended to avoid deeper discussions.
What do you think of proposals like the one tried in Ecuador, in which more than 300 million dollars were pledged to stop the exploration of 846 million barrels of oil beneath the Yasuní National Park, one of the richest areas of tropical forest in the world. Do you think this solution would be viable for Mozambique?
Yes. With this kind of funding, and access to patents and technology that are unfortunately mostly owned by the Global North, countries like Mozambique can focus on energy transition.
It is very clear that funding for this exists. Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) state that around $50 to $100 billion USD are lost each year due to tax evasion. Data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) show that $89 billion USD are lost in illicit financial flows. Data from the Tax Justice Network shows that $600 billion USD are lost every year due to tax fraud. Friends of the Earth International figures show that the wealth of the 53 richest people around the world could provide 100% renewable energy for Africa by 2030. We clearly know that this money exists, so we need to fight to demand the political will necessary to make the changes we need. This fund could also come from the payment of climate debts by industrialised countries.
The UN climate summit in Glasgow, UK, has just ended. World leaders have pledged to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by 2050. Do you find this goal realistic? What did you think of Mozambique’s position at that summit?
Mozambique’s position at COP26, given that we are one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, was largely inadequate. We should have brought a discourse relaying respective demands around the right to life, the right to develop our country without exploring fossil fuels, and the right to the climate debt. COP26 is a suicide pact for Africa that African negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping warned us about at the 2009 COP. Twelve years have passed and African leaders want to set the continent on fire.
The 2050 goal is completely unrealistic. As we often say at JA!, these negotiations are debating how many people we agree to let die, how many forests we accept to destroy, how many islands will be submerged, so that fossil fuel companies and captured governments can continue to increase emissions and their profits.
Rich countries do not take responsibility for creating the climate crisis. They also fail to meet the financial commitments for countries in the Global South to embark on a just transition. Furthermore, we are shocked that they have reached an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement – carbon markets. This undermines emissions reduction targets because it allows polluters to continue to pollute, giving them an escape route. A study published by the “Glasgow Agreement” during COP26 demonstrated how there are at least 800 new fossil fuel projects under exploration. COP26 was nothing more than an insubstantial conversation to safeguard the interests of those who want to continue to pollute.
A photo of an activist holding a sign that said ‘Stop funding gas in Mozambique’ also raised a lot of controversy and debate on social media. It is known however that a group of activists in the UK have filed legal action to force the government to withdraw from Cabo Delgado gas. Is JA! involved in this campaign?
The British agency United Kingdom Export Finance (UKEF) has pledged more than $1 billion for gas projects in Mozambique. The gas industry in Mozambique has already had irreversible impacts even before any gas has been extracted. People have lost their homes and livelihoods, and the climate impact of the construction phase, which is not even complete, is already significant. It is essential that people know this, because corporations, pension funds, investors and even governments of various countries (with tax money) are financing these projects. This is unacceptable and a big risk for the Mozambican people. And that’s why we support Friends of the Earth groups in the UK, who are working in solidarity with us, and challenging their own government in court to stop funding Mozambique’s gas because of its negative impacts. We need an energy transition. Instead of gas, we want people-centred renewable energy.
This interview was originally published in Jornal Savana in Portuguese on 10th December, 2021.
The partition of Palestine into a jewish State (55% of the territory) and a palestinian State (45% of the territory) that followed soon after the constitution of the United Nations (UN) was proposed and implemented by the the UN Special Committee for Palestine, then led by the United States of America and the USSR. This plan represented, to a great extent, the interests of the winning powers that emerged from World War II and it was justified by the genocide practiced against the jews by the nazi regime. In truth, it was a project of modern colonialism of the kind where foreign countries decide by themselves, with a ruler and set square, on the division of the territories and the future of their populations without consideration for their rights and aspirations.
In this context, in which the UN had only a weak participation from the nations of the South, the plan was approved, even though at the time the Arab states did not recognize the new State of Israel. From the war that followed, between Israel and the Arab states and Palestinian forces (1948-1949), Israel came out on top, gaining more ground, and amplifying the territory given to it by a near 20 thousand kilometres squared (75% of the surface of Palestine).
In reality, the conflicts on the ground, including the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, begun at and earlier date, in December of 1947, with a series of attacks on Palestinian villages carried out by zionist militias. 300.000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands and homes
This is the tragic sequence in which the Israeli occupation has, for seven decades, removed nearly everything from the Palestinians, let alone their dignity and just desire of being free.
The exercised oppression is systemic and the discrimination is institutional: expropriation from the land, forced change of residence, control of movements, management of water and electricity, denial of essential services. During this pandemic, even the access to vaccines has been calculatedly discretionary. In simple terms, it is pure and hard colonialism. If apartheid is recognized by the UN as a crime against humanity, why is Israel not judged for this very crime? Because ocidental values are only to be used when it is convenient for those who have power to benefit.
We, organizations from the mozambican civil society, manifest, through this declaration, our profound solidarity with the Palestinian people and believe that solidarity at the international level is fundamental for the advancement of our collective struggles for freedom, for human rights, and for justice. We echoe the words of Nelson Mandela and many other pan-africanists and affirm that we will not be free until all palestinians are free.
In the past month of May (2021), many organisations and civil society groups marched in the city of Maputo in solidarity with the people of Cabo Delgado and Palestine suffering the horrors of war and all types of direct, structural, and cultural violence.
We remember on this special date, the 25th of November – International Day for the Eradication of Violence Against Women – the Palestinian women that have suffered the horrors of this occupation as well as the violences that are specifically directed and practiced against them. We highlight their courage and their commitment to the fight for freedom of their people.
We renew today, with this manifesto, our solidarity toward the people of Palestine. We commit ourselves to being an active voice in the fight for the recognition of the inalienable rights of Palestinians and we reiterate our deepest desire to unite, by straightening the bonds of friendship between Mozambique and Palestine with the conviction that only the freedom of all nations, without any exception, is the guarantee of world peace and justice for all.
Maputo, 10th December 2021
Vasco Magoene Tembe Júnior
Terezinha da Silva
Alternactiva – Acção pela Emancipação Social
Associação de Amizade e Solidariedade com a Palestina (ASP)
Associação de Jovens Combatentes Montes Errego (AJOCME)
Hikone – Associação para o Empoderamento da Mulher
JA4change 