By Witness Radio team
In another positive development for climate activists fighting against the financing of the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) due to its environmental impacts and human rights violations, Witness Radio has learned that a 29th insurance bank has withdrawn its funding from the project.
On 4th March 2024, major insurer Probitas1492 confirmed that it won’t insure a major ‘carbon bomb’ project – the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
Probitas’s Chief Executive Officer, Ash Bathia, has publicly pledged that his company will never insure in the project. Speaking to Extinction Rebellion, a non-partisan movement advocating for action on the Climate and Ecological Emergency through non-violent direct action and civil disobedience, Bathia confirmed that Probitas currently does not provide any insurance support for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline and has no intention of doing so in the future.
Critics of the project have been advocating for the cessation of funding and support to the EACOP project due to its significant climate impacts, large-scale displacement of communities, and grave risks to protected environments, water sources, and wetlands associated with the project and would transport oil generating over 34 million extra tons of carbon emissions each year.
“Underwriting these projects would not be following our ESG policy. We would like to clarify that our stance on the above was already a matter of company policy and has not changed following the recent protests and criminal damage caused during the XR protests.” Bathia maintained.
Shortly after Probitas declared its withdrawal from funding the EACOP project, the #StopEACOP global campaign swiftly responded on its X account, “We want to congratulate Probitas on choosing not to insure the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. This pipeline, if it goes ahead, will devastate local habitats and create highly dangerous levels of carbon pollution.
Probitas becomes the 29th insurance company to rule out EACOP and the 6th insurance company to do so in the same project in this year 2024. In January 2024, leading (re)insurance companies SiriusPoint, Riverstone International, Enstar Group, and specialty insurers Blenheim and SA Meacock; officially ruled out involvement in the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project citing, pollution and human rights risks it poses.
The EACOP project has triggered significant concerns among communities and civil society groups due to its detrimental impacts on thousands of individuals in Uganda and Tanzania. The most affected have been the Project Affected Persons (PAPs) and human rights activists who stand against the project.
Reports have highlighted numerous cases of land grabbing, the displacement of host communities, inadequate compensation, poor resettlements, and the troubling trend of harassing and arresting community leaders and rights activists.
The East African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) runs 1,443km from Kabaale, Hoima district in Uganda, to the Chongoleani Peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania. The main backers of the multibillion-dollar project are the French oil company TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
