To all African Heads of State and Ministers,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.stopmozgas.org

We look forward to your visit!
Aluta Continua!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

LINK TO THE REPORT – https://en.milieudefensie.nl/news/07-md-banktrack-fossil-fuels-africa-rpt-hr.pdf

Note for editors

1. 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.