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‘We cannot drink oil’: campaigners condemn east African pipeline project.

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Patrick Pouyanné of Total; Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda after signing agreements for the controversial pipeline. Photograph: Courtesy of Total – Uganda

Activists say the ‘heart of Africa’ line shipping crude from Uganda to Tanzania is unnecessary and poses a huge environmental risk

Activists have accused French and Chinese oil firms of ignoring huge environmental risks after the signing of accords on the controversial construction of a £2.5bn oil pipeline.

Uganda, Tanzania and the oil companies Total and CNOOC signed three key agreements on Sunday that pave the way for construction to start on the planned east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP). But on Tuesday a letter signed by 38 civil society organisations across both east African countries said the parties had failed to address environmental concerns over the pipeline and had steamrollered over court and parliamentary processes.

Work is expected to begin this year on what would be the world’s longest electrically heated pipeline, which will move crude oil from fields near Lake Albert in western Uganda 900 miles to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean seaport of Tanga. Uganda’s crude oil is highly viscous, so it must be heated to be kept liquid enough to flow.

Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, and his Tanzanian counterpart, Samia Suluhu Hassan, witnessed the signing of agreements between shareholders, host governments, and on tariff and transport between EACOP and the Lake Albert oil shippers.

Uganda discovered reserves of crude near Lake Albert on its border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2006, and the landlocked country wants a pipeline to transport oil to international markets.

“These agreements open the way for the commencement of the Lake Albert development project,” Total said in a statement on Monday. “The main engineering, procurement and construction contracts will be awarded shortly, and construction will start. First oil export is planned in early 2025.”

The oil will come from two projects – the Tilenga project, operated by Total, and the Kingfisher project, operated by CNOOC, which together are expected to produce up to 230,000 barrels a day. Government geologists estimate total reserves at 6bn barrels.

However, Diana Nabiruma, of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), told the Guardian: “It is concerning that major agreements are being signed and the companies are being given the go-ahead to award contracts and start developing the Lake Albert oil project.

“The oil projects pose major environmental risks. Resources, some shared with countries such as the DRC, Tanzania and Kenya, including Lake Albert as well as Lake Victoria and rivers, are at risk of oil pollution,” she said

A globe at Uganda’s Murchison Falls national park. Activists fear the 900-mile pipeline poses risks to water resources and fisheries. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty

“The resources support the fisheries, tourism and other economic activities. They are also important for food and water security. They therefore must be conserved.”

The #StopEACOP alliance campaign condemned the decision to build the pipeline, which it says will displace 12,000 families and would be a huge environmental risk at a time of climate emergency, when the world needs to move away from fossil fuels.

Vanessa Nakate, founder of the Rise Up climate movement in Uganda, said: “There is no reason for Total to engage in oil exploration and the construction of the east Africa crude oil pipeline because this means fuelling the destruction of the planet and worsening the already existing climate disasters in the most affected areas.

“There is no future in the fossil fuel industry and we cannot drink oil. We demand Total to rise up for the people and the planet,” she said.

Lucie Pinson, of Reclaim Finance, which works to decarbonise the financial system, added: “We call on banks to publicly commit to stay clear of the project and investors to vote against Total’s climate strategy and the renewal of the mandate of its CEO Patrick Pouyanné at the group’s AGM in May.”

Last week, more than 260 African and international organisations sent an open letter to 25 commercial banks urging them not to finance the construction of the EACOP.

David Pred, of Inclusive Development International, which supports communities to defend their rights against harmful corporate projects, said: “The oil companies are trying to dress up the investment decision signing ceremony, but fortunately this climate-destroying project is far from a done deal.

The country has yet to see anything of the oil bonanza that seemed near when deposits of crude were discovered in 2006. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty

“Total is also taking into the highest consideration the sensitive environmental context and social stakes of these onshore projects. Our commitment is to implement these projects in an exemplary and fully transparent manner.”

CNOOC has been approached for comment.

But Nabiruma accused the two east African governments of racing to sign deals before their citizens had been told how any risks would be “avoided, minimised or mitigated”.

Robert Kasande, permanent secretary at Uganda’s ministry of energy and mineral development, said: “We are very mindful of the environment that we work in. It’s a very sensitive ecosystem. So we have put everything that we need to do in place.”

He said the project was being conducted in accordance with the Equator principles – a risk-management framework adopted by financial institutions for assessing and managing environmental and social risk in projects.

“This is a big project for us as a country,” Kasande said. “These resources that are going to be coming into the country are going to be a huge boost to this economy.”

Original Source: The Guardian.com

NGO WORK

Kenya: Court halts flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix and British Airways over unlawfully acquiring community land without consent

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“Landmark Court Ruling Delivers Devastating Blow To Flagship Carbon Offset Project”, Friday, 31 January 2025.

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law.

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies. One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations. The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem.

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal…

The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation.

The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.” The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.

These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there. The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas. The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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France: CSOs criticise French government’s call for “massive regulatory pause” on EU legislation, incl. CSRD and CSDDD

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“Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive : France advocates for indefinite postponement, to the detriment of social and environemental justice,” 24 January 2025

According to a document made public by Politico and Mediapart, the French government, via the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard, intends to bring to Brussels an agenda of all-out deregulation which, in addition to suspending the application of the text “sine die”, would call into question entire sections of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This irresponsible position risks precipitating the unravelling of a text necessary in the face of the climate and social crisis, a text that France nevertheless declares to have supported.

[…] The instrumentalization of the simplification of the law to weaken a directive is dangerous and unacceptable for European democracy.

According to the document published this morning in the press, France would request an indefinite postponement of the application of this directive, a significant increase in the application thresholds, or even the removal of the clause that would allow in the future to specifically regulate the activities of financial actors. These numerous modifications would lead to an exclusion of nearly 70% of the companies concerned, even though only 3,400 of the 32 million European companies (i.e. less than 0.1%) were covered under the previous thresholds according to the NGO SOMO.

In reality, as during the negotiation of the text, France is merely echoing the demands made by several employers’ organisations hostile to the duty of vigilance, including AFEP and Business Europe. In doing so, France is actively contributing to undoing the progress achieved by citizens in recent years.

For our organisations, human rights and environmental associations and trade unions, the position expressed by France is irresponsible and incomprehensible. Last week, more than 160 European associations and trade unions repeated their opposition to a questioning of European Sustainable Finance legislations.

We call on the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou Government to reconsider this position as soon as possible and to reiterate France’s support for the European duty of vigilance, for the other texts of the Green Deal which are vital for people, the climate and biodiversity, and for respecting their implementation timelines.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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New billion-dollar loans to fossil fuel companies from SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank.

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After thousands of protests, Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, as Handelsbanken has done before. But SEB, Danske Bank and Nordea continue to pump billions into the fossil fuel industry, despite the banks’ climate promises. This is shown by our and the Swedish Society for Nature’s New Review.

– The banks must stop financing the hunt for more fossil fuels, it completely undermines the climate transition. I don’t think Swedish bank customers appreciate their money were used in this way, says Jakob König, who heads the Fair Finance Guide.

60 new billions to fossil fuel companies

The New Report Banking on Thin Ice 3 shows that SEB, Nordea and Danske Bank, despite promises of climate responsibility, have given over SEK 60 billion in new loans to fossil fuel companies in the last two years. This is almost four times the Swedish government’s total climate and environmental budget for 2025. Almost SEK 22 billion has gone to companies drilling for new oil and gas discoveries. Expanding the extraction of fossil energy is contrary to the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.

“The banks have long responded to criticism by saying that they are helping the oil companies to adjust. But the companies are in the completely wrong direction by increasing their extraction instead of phasing it out. Now the banks must stop the loans just as Handelsbanken and Swedbank have done, says Karin Lexén, Secretary of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Funding oil exploration in the Arctic and Africa

The Swedish-financed oil hunt is ongoing in several parts of the world. Eight billion SEK has gone to companies looking for more oil discoveries in the Norwegian Arctic, where nature is particularly sensitive and species such as seals, dolphins and whales are threatened by extraction. Last year, Norway quadrupled the number of extraction licenses sold in the Arctic compared to the year before. A of majority the licensees were by purchased Norway’s Aker BP, which is also the oil company that has been the largest loan from Swedish banks, a total of seven billion SEK from SEB and Nordea.

The banks have also lent SEK 5.7 billion to companies drilling for oil in African countries. Extraction there is becoming all risky as companies seek ever greater depths to find new deposits. In Namibia, oil drilling at depths of up to 3,000 meters. Other countries where the Swedish-financed companies are active are Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Aquatorial Guinea.

Swedbank stops oil loans

The report, however, shows that Swedbank has stopped lending to oil companies, just as Handelsbanken did two years ago. This is likely a result of the thousands of customer protests that our previous reviews have given rise to, as well as the motions that have been put forward at the banks’ general meetings. Swedbank and Handelsbanken are now among a small group of banks in the world that have stopped lending to oil companies.

– It is gratifying that another major Swedish bank has become an international role model when it comes to sustainable financing. Now more must follow suit and take responsibility, because there are still large fossil fuel companies that receive loans to continue operations that exacerbate the climate crisis, says Karin Lexén.

Original: fairfinanceguide-se

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