Jul 30 (IPS) – Following the current Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) match in Ivory Coast, a continent-wide marketing campaign has emerged on social media difficult the match’s essential sponsor, TotalEnergies, over its involvement within the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
EACOP, an enormous 1,443-kilometer crude oil export pipeline, is designed to move oil from Western Uganda’s oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. TotalEnergies, a significant stakeholder within the challenge, will extract oil from the Tilenga subject and export it to the International North.
Environmentalists argue that the challenge threatens the livelihoods of tens of 1000’s of individuals and the area’s fragile ecosystems. The Ugandan and Tanzanian governments have dismissed these issues, asserting that the pipeline is crucial for bolstering their economies.
Many of those campaigners, significantly environmentalists, have confronted harassment and arrest.
One among them, Stephen Kwikiriza, an worker of Uganda’s Surroundings Governance Institute (EGI), a non-profit group, was reportedly kidnapped and crushed by the Ugandan armed forces in Kampala on June 4, 2024.
After being questioned, he was deserted a whole bunch of miles from the capital, highlighting the most recent episode within the crackdown on environmentalists in Uganda.
TotalEnergies, via their press officer, François Sinecan, emphatically denied that the corporate had something to do with the harassment of environmentalists, or was concerned in legitimizing the corporate via sponsorship.
Sportswashing
Critics argue that TotalEnergies is exploiting Uganda and Tanzania for his or her oil, even because it faces quite a few legal battles resulting from its function within the local weather disaster and refusal to take accountability.
They fear that TotalEnergies is utilizing AFCON, the continent’s largest soccer match, and its world viewership to reinforce its picture whereas benefiting from climate-wrecking fossil gasoline extraction throughout Africa.
“AFCON is without doubt one of the methods they are utilizing to legitimize their existence. They’ve to make use of the sports activities enviornment. They appear to say, ‘Have a look at what we’re doing in Africa, and in your communities, it’s to your profit.’ Each time you take a look at the emblem of TotalEnergies, you may be satisfied that this can be a massive company that ought to make investments , when in truth, they’re destroying our existence,” Nkurunziza Alphonse, the Ugandan Coordinator of the Students Against EACOP Uganda, instructed IPS.
Alphonse was arrested in October 2022 when he led a bunch of scholars to the EU embassy in Kampala to ship a petition towards EACOP. However he isn’t the one scholar to be arrested and harassed in current occasions.
On December 15 final yr, Bwete Abdul Aziiz, a co-founder of the Justice Motion Uganda and a scholar at Kyambogo College in Kampala, rallied 50 college students, together with members of the motion, to protest and ship a petition to the Ugandan parliament towards the EACOP.
Nonetheless, the scholars didn’t attain their vacation spot because the police dispersed the protest and arrested Abdul Aziiz, together with three different college students who’re members of the motion.
“Earlier than we had been taken to the Central Police Station in Kampala, the place we spent 4 days, we had been held in an enclosed area for about an hour the place the police threatened us to cease combating the federal government. I used to be kicked within the ribs by a police officer, and different colleagues had been slapped,” Abdul Aziiz instructed IPS.
Nonetheless, Sinecan, TotalEnergies press officer, denied claims of sportwashing and involvement within the arrests of local weather activists.
“Africa is a part of the DNA of TotalEnergies, which has been current on the continent for ninety years and has by no means ceased to develop its actions and strengthen its native roots. The corporate employs 10,000 women and men in additional than 40 African nations, working throughout the whole power manufacturing and distribution chain. Each day, almost 4 million clients go to the 4,700 service stations within the TotalEnergies community in Africa,” Sinecan instructed IPS.
He added that TotalEnergies “won’t tolerate any risk or assault towards those that peacefully defend and promote human rights.”
“TotalEnergies has a historical past of partaking immediately with all members of civil society, together with NGOs concerned in human rights points. To this finish, the corporate’s commitments embody quarterly conferences, stakeholder dialogue, bilateral conferences, webinars on keynote matters recognized by NGOs and responses to questions and issues raised by all challenge stakeholders,” stated Sinecan.
Nonetheless, activists that IPS spoke to don’t agree.
Bhekhumuzi Bhebhe, Campaigns Lead at Power Shift Africa, in a press release despatched to IPS stated, “Investing tens of millions in sportswashing whereas undercompensating displaced households exposes a profound deceit by the French multinational. It additionally highlights the obtrusive disconnect between company sponsorship and real social accountability.”
However the French oil big denied claims of undercompensating displaced households, telling IPS that “as with all different elements of the challenge, TotalEnergies stringently complies with native laws and worldwide requirements (IFC).”
Soccer and Local weather Change
The 2023 AFCON was postponed to 2024 resulting from adverse weather conditions, main critics to argue that the match underscored the impacts of the local weather disaster, for which TotalEnergies and different oil majors are largely accountable.
Richard Heede of the Local weather Accountability Mission has described EACOP as a mid-sized carbon bomb. The pipeline is projected to turn into operational by 2025 and as soon as accomplished, it’s anticipated to contribute roughly 34 million tons of carbon emissions yearly for round 25 years.
Baraka Lenga, Greenfaith Tanzania coordinator, considers this a local weather catastrophe.
“For capitalists and businessmen, EACOP implies making billions of {dollars}. TotalEnergies doesn’t care about human rights however about cash. In Tanzania, over 70 % of residents depend upon agriculture, but as a substitute of worrying concerning the adverse impacts of EACOP, TotalEnergies is targeted on revenue,” Lenga stated.
Alagoa Morris, an environmental professional and human rights activist in Nigeria, instructed IPS that African governments enable oil giants to use communities within the continent to keep up help from the International North, the place nearly all of these oil corporations are based mostly. He says this has additionally led to quite a few oil spills within the continent.
Final yr, the Nigerian authorities confirmed the lack of 3,000 barrels of crude oil in TotalEnergies’ spill within the oil-rich Niger-Delta area, which is already some of the polluted areas on the planet resulting from frequent oil spills.
“African governments are complicit within the exploitation of the continent’s oil assets as a result of the wealth generated from oil is then used to gasoline the lust for energy and wealth of some people, perpetuating a cycle of corruption and environmental degradation,” Morris stated.
Renewable Energies?
To get rid of fossil fuels by mid-century, world leaders throughout cop28 held at UAE final yr, pledged to maintain investing in renewable energies. Nonetheless, with a projected population of about 2.5 billion in 2050, many African leaders doubt that renewable power can adequately substitute for power obtained from fossil fuels required to supply energy for a quickly rising inhabitants in Africa.
Seyifunmi Adebote, an environmental coverage professional in Nigeria, believes Africa should embrace renewable power however in keeping with him, “many nations on the continent lack the infrastructure to transition to renewable power within the brief run.”
Regardless of accusations of investing in fossil fuels, TotalEnergies instructed IPS that it has “devoted USD 5 billion to renewable and low-carbon energies and can dedicate one other USD 5 billion in 2024. That is the second yr in a row that TotalEnergies has invested extra in low-carbon energies than in new hydrocarbon initiatives.
“Since 2020, we’ve got been resolutely dedicated to our transition technique, which relies on two pillars: fuel and electrical energy. Fuel and low-carbon electrical energy are on the coronary heart of tomorrow’s power system. Fuel is a necessary transitional power to help the rise of intermittent renewable energies and substitute coal in energy era. In electrical energy, we’re already one of many world’s largest photo voltaic and wind energy builders, which ought to put us within the prime 5 worldwide on this sector by 2030.”
Victory In Sight
The destiny of EACOP is unsure after a number of monetary establishments, together with earlier supporters of TotalEnergies, announced they’d now not again the challenge resulting from world environmental protests.
European lawmakers have additionally condemned and referred to as for its delay.
For the Ugandan-based Alphonse, this marks a major victory within the battle towards EACOP, as the dearth of financiers may result in the challenge being suspended.
“That is the time African nations ought to transfer away from fossil fuels. Oil is destroying our continent,” he stated.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
