Banner photo credit Jeffery M Walcott / IWMI

Almost 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity. That’s not justice. But neither is the current push to exploit Africa’s fossil fuel reserves in the wake of the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. The oil and gas extracted from African countries isn’t going to be used to generate electricity for the people who live there. It’s for export to already rich countries, and the bulk of the financial profit is retained by the oil and gas companies behind these projects – the companies who have already made obscene windfall profits while ignoring the existential threat to climate vulnerable communities. On top of this, the extraction of fossil fuels contaminates the land, devastates local biodiversity and destroys communities. It’s mad and bad. Sinful one might say.

At COP27 a list was drawn up of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change – seven countries in Africa were on the list: Chad, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria and Ethiopia. It goes almost without saying, that our neighbours in Africa need us to stop global greenhouse gas emissions from rising. Justice demands that African fossil fuels stay in the ground, but justice also demands that these neighbours have access to energy as we ourselves do. They have been responsible for a tiny proportion of the cumulative emissions that are driving our planetary systems to the brink of catastrophic collapse; and we have used up vastly more than our fair share of the global carbon budget to build the comfort and prosperity that will continue to be denied to them without adequate sources of revenue and clean energy. We are forcing some of the world’s poorest countries into a choice between addressing poverty by selling their oil and gas reserves and the climate action their people need.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Africa is rich in sources of renewable energy.  African countries could use them to build sustainable self-reliant prosperity. What is lacking is a technical and financial commitment – commitment to invest in renewables at scale and to finance the green transition – from our companies and countries that have for a very long time taken the benefit of Africa’s resources. They must now act on this urgently to turn around the continent’s future – that is justice. 

Join us in demanding justice at the Africa Energies Summit on Wednesday 15^th May. All the major oil and gas companies will be there, along with ministers of oil and gas rich countries in Africa, and financiers, making dirty deals for more oil and gas projects.

The location of the conference is kept secret by the organisers and so we won’t know exactly where we will be until the day but we expect it to be in the Southbank area and so we are meeting on the morning of Wednesday 15th May between 6.30 and 6.45am at Jubilee Gardens, Belvedere Road, London SE1 7PG (opposite the Shell Centre). We expect to finish by about 9.30am. Do join us even if you have to leave before that. Please wear a CCA t-shirt if you can.

Banner photo: solar irrigation pump outside of Kitale, Kenya. Credit: Jeffery M Walcott / IWMI