A group of political figures, scientists and NGO leaders called Monday in a tribune “to stop” the oil megaproject of the group TotalEnergies in Uganda and Tanzania, which would precipitate, according to them, “climate change and its procession of deadly disasters”.
In February, TotalEnergies announced a $10 billion investment agreement with Uganda, Tanzania and China’s CNOOC, including the construction of a 1,400-kilometer pipeline (the East African Crude Oil Pipeline – EACOP) linking the Lake
This is the first time that a project has been carried out from St. Albert, in western Uganda, to the Tanzanian coast.
In a report published last week, two French associations warned of the “unacceptable” human, climatic and environmental costs in Uganda and Tanzania of this project of the French group Total.
As TotalEnergies prepares to begin drilling in one of Uganda’s most beautiful natural parks, according to this article published in the newspaper Le Monde, the signatories urge people to say “no to Total’s giant pipeline in East Africa.
Among the signatories are dozens of personalities including European and French MPs, Ugandan and Tanzanian NGOs, the coordinator of the international coalition “StopEacop” Omar Elmawi, the president of the Belgian Socialist Party Paul Magnette, the first secretary of the
French Socialist Party Olivier Faure, representatives of Youth For Climate Paris, Greenpeace France, France Nature Environnement, Friends of the Earth France.
The president of the commission of the European Union’s bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, is also a signatory, as well as several climate scientists – including French geographer and meteorologist Jean Jouzel – and French sailor and author Isabelle Autissier.
“In Europe, as in the rest of the world, the summer of 2022 was a deadly summer,” the forum notes. “But while millions of us want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, others continue to want to extract more and more oil,” she continued, adding: “It is in northern Uganda that TotalEnergies wants to start drilling in December to supply crude oil to what would be the longest heated pipeline in the world.
This infrastructure “threatens the access to water and food security of more than 40 million people”, denounces the tribune. “If we can’t stop this project, it’s up to 34 million
tons of CO2 that would be emitted each year for 25 or 30 years and would precipitate climate change and its procession of deadly disasters,” she warns.
The signatories call on “TotalEnergies and its shareholders to immediately abandon the Eacop project” and on the European Union “to finally put into practice the idea of a financial support plan for countries that give up exploiting their fossil fuel reserves and invest in renewable energies.
