More than 600 million Africans lacked access to electricity before the pandemic, and it appears that this figure is growing. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2020 some gains in access were reversed, with as many as 30 million people who previously had access to electricity no longer able to afford it.
The response from Europe has been a wave of new lawsuits undermining energy poverty, climate justice, jobs, and our economic recovery. No one loves the environment more than we do.
We are the greatest environmental lovers and should not take lectures on it. Western Groups have targeted the African energy sector and are working hard to make lawsuits against financing African oil and gas a growing and thriving industry.
The difference is that anti-African lawsuits fromĀ , andundermine businesses of all sizes, our competitiveness, and our economic recovery.
You almost have to admire their ingenuity and dishonesty. They have engineered devastating public relations campaigns against Africans while their homes are powered by coal.
Fortunately, U.K. judges have not yet bought their tactics ā but that doesnāt mean these hate groups will stop trying!
Condemning Africans to poverty and misery is wrong. Preventing us from using our natural resources for our development while you take even our coal to Europe to power your wealthy lifestyle and keep our children in the dark is sinful.
They called it climate action. I hear dumb ideas every day of the week, but this one takes the cake!
The bottom line is, if you build a system conducive to lawsuits to prevent African development and condemn countries likeĀ ,,,,Ā So, and , they will come. Only one problem ā they will destroy jobs, competitiveness and economic growth, and energy poverty.
Thereās no denying that climate change is affecting Africa. One has only to look at the extended drought in the south to see how devastating things can be when customary weather patterns are disrupted.
The thing is, Africa is being affected by a crisis NOT OF ITS OWN MAKING. If contributing just 3 per cent of global emissions could cause issues like what weāre seeing in Somalia, for example, the worldās nations that produce far more greenhouse gases should be dried up, underwater, blown away, or burned to a crisp by now.
Consider this: Prominent American climate activistĀ Bill McKibbenĀ said that the world canāt fight climate change ifandĀ go through with building the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
Africa is being affected by a crisis NOT OF ITS OWN MAKING
Yes, according to McKibben, that one action will derail the entire carbon reduction scheme and offset anything any of the worldās other countries are doing to reach net zero. Seems ridiculous, doesnāt it?
Whatās even more perplexingāor perhaps outlandishāis that McKibben has taken aim at a pipeline that will transport just 210,000 barrels of oil per day. Thatās roughly equivalent to 1.8 per cent of the total output of the U.S., but he claims it must be stopped, or everything falls apart.
Whatās the point of any climate effort anywhere if it can be undone by a relatively small pipeline that might actually be a lifeline in one of the worldās most impoverished nations?
ChloƩ Farand a wealthy French activist who according to our sources vetoed every decision in her previous Organisation to hire black employees has recently been deployed to Kenya with a mission to fight energy development in East Africa.
Kenyans, Rwandans, and Ugandans should pay special attention to this and also the upcoming vicious and dangerous campaign against EACOP.
Why will someone who refuses to work or seat around people of color be so keen to work in Africa in the name of Climate justice? Her racist past does not qualify her to talk about fighting for Africans in Kenya and Uganda.
Racism, sexism, and Anti Semitism are wrong, and we Africans must forcefully condemn it. Farand should start by apologizing rather than running to Kenya so she can go back to Europe and say look, I have a black friend.
Nice Try but we got you. While we believe in Africaās openness and free speech, we will vigorously oppose and confront any action to prevent the development of EACOP and our fight against energy poverty.
And speaking of pressure from powerful external forces, is ChloĆ© Farand, Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeaceās approach truly free of āneo-colonialā elements? I didnāt know Greenpeace was a Pan-Africanist NGO.
Is the NGO using its position as one of the worldās most well-known environmental groups to ensure that local environmental advocates have a bigger bully pulpit?
Is its opposition to EACOP rooted in the dreams and desires of ordinary Ugandans and Tanzanians, or is it trying to impose a solution from outside, on the basis of the global environmental movementās pre-existing animus towards fossil fuels?
Itās wrong to use a historically and emotionally loaded word like āneo-colonialismā in this instance. Itās wrong to imply that Tanzania and Uganda have been coerced into working with foreign corporations, and itās wrong to invoke colonialism in the hope of convincing Africans to listen to a different group of people who think they know best.
Let Africans decide for themselves!
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of the African Energy Chamber.