Fighting energy poverty means embracing a just transition

Fossil fuels have been extracted from different parts of the African continent for more than 60 years, mostly for export to serve the countries of the global North. The fossil fuel lobby on the African continent is merely playing the role of comprador, facilitating extraction from Africa for the benefit of imperial powers and African and global elites. 

The “rewards” have been severe environmental degradation to land and water, oil pollution, gas flares, negative health impacts, land grabs, insecurity, militarization, human rights abuses.This happens while 600 million Africans still live without energy, 700 million have no access to clean cooking energy. 

Communities across Africa, and the world, are already experiencing the damaging impacts of the climate crisis. Just this year, the peoples of Mozambique, Kenya, and many East African countries suffered from deadly climate change impacts – floods, drought, hurricanes, and typhoons – all linked to the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels. All of which are direct impacts of climate change.

Reacting to a grave accusation by the Flacoius report published by the Africa Energy Chamber on the 16th of May 2024, we, as Friends of the Earth Africa [1] understand and are pleased to see that our work to support peoples and the planet is threatening to entities like the Energy Chamber that are constantly acting against these interests. Peoples of Africa are the ones who constantly fight for peoples’ sovereignty and progress for the poorest and most vulnerable.

Asserting this, three of our colleagues from Friends of the Earth France and Action Justice Climat, in solidarity with the peoples of Africa, staged a nonviolent action at the close of the “Invest in African Energy Forum” in Paris. Calling out “Total, Perenco, Stop prédation fossile”, they have been accused on the nature of the action, accusations that are wrong and made up by the organisers, annoyed to see their meeting being disrupted.

As social movements and communities tirelessly work to build this society upon peoples’ participation, we are not fooled by the development and “energy poverty eradication” lip service offered by the transnational companies and rich governments. Narratives of development – that cause more harm to communities and society than their supposed benefits – have been repeated over and over for the business to continue, for the false solutions to take over the needed radical changes.

The facts are clear:iIt is an illusion to think that exploring fossil fuels on the African continent will bring energy or development to the people when we know that developing new extraction projects on the African continent will be responsible for more than 14% of the short-term oil and gas expansion there. Mozambique is an example of this illusion, with the exploitation of Coal in Tete, the Gas in Inhambane and Cabo Delgado only 40% of the people have access to energy. The other benefits from these projects have been misfortune, loss of land, pollution, increased corruption, human rights violations, instability, war/ insurgency, and the constantly shrinking civil society space.

‘The majority of Africans’ clean energy and poverty eradication aspirations will not be served by crude oil export pipelines like the EACOP.  The Africa Energy Chamber errs in arguing that fossil fuel projects and export crude oil pipelines serve Africans’ interests. 

Inclusive, community-owned clean energy projects that emphasize economic transformation for the most vulnerable will. We need to embrace a just transition. We as Friends of the Earth Africa have published several reports establishing the pathways towards this.

In Just Recovery Renewable Energy Plan for Africa, and Don’t Let Africa Burn, we suggest ways our governments can take to lift our peoples out of energy poverty, create over 7 million jobs, and justly transition to a people-centered, people-led, clean, renewable energy era that does not include ‘gas as a transition fuel’ or investment in environmentally and socially degrading oil extraction.

At this stage of the energy transition, African leaders should prioritize demanding the payment of ecological debts owed to the region for years of robbery by those responsible for the climate crisis as grants, not loans. They should be demanding these funds to ease our transition towards clean socially-owned renewables, aid adaptation, and mitigation, and not explore/exploit gas as a transition fuel. We ask who will suffer the consequences of continued exploitation of fossil fuels and also live with the stranded fossil fuels infrastructural assets? It is the most vulnerable.

Our leaders should be demanding the transfer of relevant technology for the peoples of Africa. The energy transition we seek for the people of Africa is based on their sovereignty, one led by the people, and one where the people own and control the energy.

Friends of the Earth Africa – Endorsed by 
Anabela Lemos, Founder of Justiça Ambiental (JA!), Friends of the Earth Mozambique;
Diana Nabiruma, Senior Communicator at Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) Uganda and ally of Friends of the Earth;
Bobby Peek, Executive Director of groundWork, Friends of the Earth South Africa.

Note: [1] Friends of the Earth Africa (FoEA) is a collective of 11 sovereign national-level organizations working with grassroots communities on environmental and rights-based struggles in Africa. We build people’s power towards a common African agenda for environmental, economic, gender, and social justice free from all forms of domination and exploitation, such as neoliberalism, corporate globalization, neo-colonialism, and militarism. 

The national groups of FoEA are part of the 70-country groups that make up Friends of the Earth International.