As speakers and participants gather at Chatham House in central London for a two-day conference entitled ‘Extractive Industries in Africa’, individuals, organisations and coalitions from across Africa and beyond have signed an open letter challenging the conference organisers and attendees. The letter asks that delegates consider an alternative set of questions and discussion points which, rather than paying ‘mere lip service’ to sustainability and international protocols, addresses the climate, social and ecological crises that the extractives industries are implicated in and consider a genuine transition away from fossil fuels. The letter will be delivered by hand by Nnimmo Bassey, a lifelong activist challenging big oil in the Niger Delta, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria, and former Head of Friends of the Earth International.

We, members of African civil society and our non-African allies, write to you to express our deep concerns regarding the conference on Extractive Industries in Africa taking place today in London.

At this event, which claims to critically consider the current and future role of extractive industries in Africa, we note with concern that mining corporations, government agencies, academics and large NGOs from the Global North are well represented. But where are the voices of affected African communities and civil society in this discussion?

With the exception of one civil society person from Kenya, members of African civil society and/or communities are entirely absent from your speakers list. The participation of African community members is effectively prevented by locating this conference outside of Africa and charging prohibitively expensive fees for attendance (£580 being the cheapest fee for non-member NGOs). It can only be hoped that this is not another Berlin Conference aimed this time at carving up the continent’s resources.

Local communities are most affected by extractive industries in Africa, which routinely disrupt and destroy their livelihoods, health, ecosystems and cultural coherence. To exclude their voices strips this event of all legitimacy.

At this time of multiple social and ecological crises, your conference asks the wrong questions and will only provide answers that miss the mark and risk worsening the social and environmental injustices perpetrated by the extractive industries and their allies in Africa.

Mere lip service is paid to sustainability and inclusivity, and to international protocols to reduce continued global reliance on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions.

Referring to your materials for the conference, which pose ‘key questions for the future of the industry’ we firmly believe the focus should be on:

• The societal, environmental and economic threats extractive industries pose to the future of the people and ecosystems of Africa and our shared climate, rather than on the so-called societal, environmental and economic pressures facing Africa’s extractive industries.
• How to prevent the devastating impacts of the extractive industries rather than misleading discussions about what immediate action is required to manage and mitigate the long-term impacts of future extraction.
• Finding radical alternatives to the failed resource extraction=growth=development equation, rather than seeking ways to plaster over the cracks of this failed and fundamentally flawed logic.
• At this time of climate crisis, when we know 2/3 of all fossil fuels must remain untouched to prevent runaway climate change, we ought to ask how we can take every necessary step to transition away from carbon-hungry extractive activities and the extraction of fossil fuels, nothow we can promote both extractive industries and low-carbon development strategies.
• ‘New approaches to overcoming enduring challenges’ should not be concerned with aiding the already vastly wealthy extractive industries, but rather with moving beyond them to protect existing and promote future alternatives to creating genuine equality and prosperity in Africa, such as renewables and small-scale agroecological farming.

We call on Chatham House to show genuine leadership of thought to move beyond these tired and wasteful discussions and stop providing a safe space for extractive industries to take the stage and network unchallenged. The world’s scientific community has given us all the statistics we need; business as usual is simply not an option.

Now is not the time to think of the future of the extractive industries, but the future of people and the planet. If we do not, we will all share in the consequences.

We choose to stand for life.

Yours Sincerely,

Nnimmo Bassey, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria

Sheila Berry, Wilderness Action Group & Save Our iMfolozi Wilderness campaign, South Africa

Supported by: The African Biodiversity Network, Kenya; Friends of the Earth Togo; GroundWork, Friends of the Earth South Africa; Noble Wadzah , Oilwatch, Ghana; Kentebe Ebiaridor, Oilwatch Africa, Nigeria; Kamese N. Geoffrey, Denis Tabaro, Shillar Osinde & Frank Muramuzi for the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), Uganda; Priscilla M Achakpa, Women Environmental Programme, Nigeria; Kwami D Kpondzo, Young Christian Action for Development, Togo; Benson ATTAH, Community Emergency Response Initiative, Nigeria; Kelvin Uever, Charles and Doosurgh Abaagu Foundation, Nigeria; Hilma Mote, Executive Director of Africa Labour Research and Education Institute (ALREI) and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa), Togo; The Mupo Foundation, South Africa; Anabela Lemos, Director of JA!FOE, Mozambique; Kofi Mawuli Klu, Global Justice Forum (GJF); Adwoa Oforiwaa Adu for All-Afrikan Students’ Union Link in Europe (AASULE) at Sussex University, Brighton; Sumana Nandi for Students’ Action for Global Justice Internationalist Society (SAGJIS) at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; Simeon Stanford for Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE);Kwame Adofo Sampong for the Trade Unions and the Pan-Afrikan Community Link (TUPACOL); Olajumoke Sankofa for the Pan-Afrikan Community Educational Services (PACES); Esther Stanford-Xosei for the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament, UK; Kwame Dede Akuamoah for the ASASEYAAMMA Pan-Afrikan Green Campaign for Global Justice; Bishop Geoff Davies for the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute; Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT); London Mining Network, UK; Mining Watch Canada, Canada; The Gaia Foundation, UK; Friends of the Earth International; ICCA Consortium; Save Rosia Montana campaign, Romania; Mining Watch Romania; Snowchange Cooperative, Scandinavia; Comité Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida – Tolima, Colombia; Mariana Gomez, Yes to Life No to Mining, Latin America; Denver Justice & Peace Committee, USA; Marirosa Iannelli, Luca Raineri & Maurizio Belli for Co-operation for the Development of Emerging Countries (COSPE), Italy, Stop Water Grabbing Campaign; Bobby Andrew, Spokesman and Elder, Nunamta Aulukestai, USA; Guadalupe Rodríguez, Salva la Selva, Spain; Linda Sheehan, Earth Law Centre, California, USA; Rainforest Rescue, Germany; DECOIN, Defensa y Conservacion Ecologica de Intag, Ecuador; Center for Environment, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Friends of the Earth Bosnia and Herzegovina; Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment, Philippines; and Fossil Free SOAS, UK.

Nigeria has constituted a national preparatory committee to participate effectively at the Twenty-first Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding this year in Paris, France in December.

Tagged the National Technical Committee for Paris 2015, the eight-man team will articulate and develop the country’s negotiating position at the COP, where the world will reach decisions on how to mitigate climate change by checking activities that promote it and, indeed, agree on a new climate deal.  .

The committee members include: Mrs Nana Fatima Mede (committee chair and permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Environment), Dr Samuel Adejuwon (Director, Department of Climate Change in the ministry), Dr Martin Uhomoibhi, Prof Babajide Alo, Dr Niyi Onamusi, Prof Olukayode Oladipo, Peter Tarfa (Deputy Director, DCC) and Kayode Adeniran.

The committee’s terms of reference include:

• Coordination of national preparation towards Paris COP21/CMP11;
• Articulating and developing the country’s negotiation position;
• Assemble and train a technical team of negotiators for the country;
• Sourcing for and ensuring adequate funding for the preparation for Paris;
• Developing a stakeholder inclusive programme and ensuring participation of corporate Nigeria;
• Convening meetings of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change;
• Ensuring attendance and participation of country’s representatives at all international preparatory meetings; and,
• Preparing and submitting a comprehensive report of COP 21

Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam, while inaugurating the committee in Abuja last week, expressed fears about the global climate decisions on the Nigerian economy.

According to her, such decisions may adversely affect the nation’s economy because the country’s main source of income is crude oil, a raw material that emits greenhouse gas in large quantity and contributes considerably to climate change.

She said, “Nigeria’s attention should focus on practical and realistic Paris decisions, which do not only capture a common objective and recognise our different national circumstances, priorities and capabilities, but also raise ambition and launch a swift process of domestic proactivity and multilateral consultation and cooperation.

“More importantly, our participation should be very strategic, particularly as Nigeria’s economy is largely dependent on crude oil as its main source of foreign earnings; and crude oil, as we know, is a major source of greenhouse gas. Hence any international protocol or decision arrived at in this respect may positively or negatively affect our economy.”

A member of the committee, Prof Oladipo, said: “I think that it is a good initiative if you realise that the good outing that we had in Copenhagen (Demark) was facilitated by a coordinated committee approach that was put in place in 2009 by the then Minister of Environment (John Odey) and with the active role of the country’s Ambassador to Denmark, Dr Godknows Igali. With this committee, we should be able to have in place a process work-plan that will itemise what needs to be done by who and when to ensure our effective participation in all the required meetings for COP 21. In addition, with the demonstrated interest of the ministry in putting the committee together, efforts will be made to make sure that adequate funding is secured for Nigeria’s participation.”

A climate change negotiator, Prince Lekan Fadina, said: “I commend the Ministry and DCC for the inauguration of the COP 21 committee. It is a step in the right direction because it will ensure an engaging and effective participation by the nation at the global forum.”

Observers believe that the new development arose from the general concern that the country’s participation in COPs for climate change since COP 15 in Copenhagen has remained largely low-key and poorly coordinated, a scenario that was reportedly brought to the knowledge of Mrs Mede, the new Permanent Secretary in the ministry. It was her determination to reverse the trend that led to the constitution of the NTC, it was gathered.

Prof Oladipo added: “The establishment of the National Technical Committee for COP 21 is an aspect of the Strategic Action Plan that I recommended to the Department of Climate Change while helping to put together a National Strategic Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change in Nigeria in which I advocated a NTC for the climate change COPs, and not just for Paris alone.

“Overall, once the committee is able to demonstrate its relevance by ensuring that Nigeria participates timely and effectively and works with the private sector and development partners to mobilise resources for its participation, it will be seen as a positive approach to addressing national response to climate change in Nigeria.”

Participants at the Regional Conference of Asia-Pacific Right Livelihood Laureates in Mumbai, India on Friday March 6, 2015 petitioned Dr Goodluck Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, over the pathetic Ogoniland in the Niger Delta region, calling for urgent actions to address the large-scale environmental degradation in the community

More than half a Century of exploitation of petroleum resources in the Niger Delta has left the environment so polluted that the region that, once was a biodiversity hotspot, is now ranked one of the most polluted places on earth.

In response to this sorry state of affairs, Nigeria’s federal government mandated the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to conduct an assessment of the Ogoni environment, an area where active oil extraction has since 1993 been suspended due to popular action.

Ogoniland is a subset of the entire Niger Delta region. The state of its environment is emblematic of the whole. We note that this situation is replicated in other regions around the world where polluting extractive activities are being carried out.

We remember that Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of our RLA laureates (1994), was executed 20 years ago for standing with his people to demand protection of rights of his people to a safe environment from the Nigerian state.

The UNEP report indicated that the water in Ogoniland is polluted, with benzene (a carcinogen,) 900 times above World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards for drinking water. The lands are polluted in several places to a depth of five metres. UNEP also stated that it would require 25 years of work to restore the waters, and five years to restore the lands in that community.

We are concerned that almost four years after the release of the UNEP report, no significant step has been taken to implement its recommendations. We are even shocked to learn of moves by corporate
interests to restart petroleum resources extraction in Ogoniland without first looking at the question of environmental restoration before restarting oil activities. This development will only compound the
devastation and further diminish the livelihoods of the people and their chance of enjoying their lives in dignity.

We, the RLA Laureates and Observers meeting in Mumbai, India, demand as follows:

1. That all lovers of life and the Planet join us to demand that Ogoniland
   be declared an ecological disaster zone and call for an urgent clean-up of
   the environment.
2. That the Nigerian government urgently provides potable water for the
   people across Ogoniland.
3. That petroleum extraction activity should not be restarted in Ogoniland
   without the environment first being detoxified and restored.
4. That the Nigerian government commissions an assessment of the entire
   Niger Delta environment
5. That all countries learn from the Ogoni ecological disaster and insist
   on free prior informed consent of citizens in communities and territories
   where resources are found before exploitation of such resources

Signed:

Dr. Arun Gupta, India; Prof. P.K. Raveendran, KSSSP, India; Shrikrishna Upadhyay, SAPPROS, Nepal; Basil Fernando, Hong Kong; Irfan Engineer, India; Glorene Das, TANAGANITA (women’s Force), Malaysia; Lobzang Tsultim, LADAKH, India; Suciwati Munir, Indonesia; Nnimmo Bassey, HOMEF, Nigeria; Ovais Sultan Khan; Hogyun Kim, South Korea; Alyn Ware, New Zealand; Teruho Kobayashi, Japan; Masami Tsuchiya, Japan; Dr Maruja Salas; Degefa Tolosa, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dr Fidelis Allen, Nigeria; K. G. Mathaikutty, LWSIT, India; Marianne Andersson, Sweden; Till Stellmacher, RLC/Bonn, Germany; Dr A. Xavier Raj, India; Indira Fernida, Indonesia; Lennart Olsson, Lund University, Sweden; Monika Giefahn, Germany; and, Teruko Kobayashi, Japan.

As a major step to curb the devastating consequences of climate change, Africa is prioritising adaptation. Adaptation implies those activities that will make people, ecosystems and infrastructure less vulnerable to the impacts climate change. However, a new report warns that the costs of climate change adaptation is expected to rise far beyond Africa’s coping capacity.

According to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, dubbed Africa Adaptation Gap report 11, the continent could see climate change adaptation costs rise to US$50 billion per year by 2050, even assuming international efforts keep global warming below 2°C this century.

“The climate change challenge exceeds the capacity of the continent to respond to projected damages and impacts through domestic resources, even if the base to raise additional funding is broadened. Scaled-up international support for African countries is therefore critical,” the report stated.

The report was released at the 15^th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) holding in Cairo, Egypt.

A statement by UNEP said the report builds on UNEP’s Global Adaptation Gap Report 2014, which found that adaptation costs in all developing countries together could climb as high as US$250-500 billion per year by 2050.

“Costs could double to USD 100 billion per year by 2050 under a scenario that has the world warming more than 4˚C warming by 2100,” the report warned.

The report said deep global emissions reductions are the best way to head off Africa’s crippling adaptation costs. It also finds that the continent’s domestic resources are insufficient to respond to projected impacts, but it would be important to complement international funding for African countries — including meeting the Cancun climate finance commitments by 2020.

“The accelerating rate of climate change poses great adaptation challenges, of which we have been well forewarned,” said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner.

“The best insurance against the many potential negative impacts of climate change is ambitious global mitigation action in the long-run, combined with large – scale and rapidly increasing funding for adaptation. Investing in resilience and adaptation as an integral part of national development planning can develop resilience to future climate change impacts” he added.

The UNEP statement said, warming projections under medium scenarios indicate that extensive areas of Africa will exceed 2°C by the last two decades of this century relative to the late 20th century mean annual temperature. Under a high warming pathway, temperatures could exceed 2°C by mid-century across much of Africa and reach between 3°C and 6°C by the end of the Century, the statement said.

This would have a severe impact on agricultural production, food security, human health and water availability.

“This is not just a question of money; millions of people and their livelihoods are at stake,” said Binilith Mahenge, outgoing President of AMCEN and Tanzania’s Minister of State for Environment.

“Africa’s population will be at an increasing risk of undernourishment due to increasing food demand and the detrimental effects of climate change on agriculture on the continent. Global warming of 2 ̊C would put over 50 per cent of the African continent’s population at risk of undernourishment. Yet, the IPCC showed that without additional mitigation we are heading to 4 ̊C of warming.”

“Rising to the challenge and addressing the systemic harm that climate change may cause in Africa, thus undermining the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, warrants leaving no stone unturned in exploring opportunities for supporting adaptation actions and measures in Africa,” he added.

Closing the funding gap The report explores the extent to which African nations can contribute to closing the adaptation gap —especially in the area of identifying the resources that will be needed. The evidence suggests that African countries—such as Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa—are already committing some resources of their own to adaptation efforts.

Country-case studies in the report suggest that by 2029/2030, under moderately optimistic growth scenarios, Ghana could for example – based on hypothetical scenarios – commit US$233million to adaptation financing, Ethiopia US$248 million, South Africa US$961 million and Togo US$18.2 million.

However, international funding will be required to bridge the growing adaptation gap even if African nations commit to ways to increase domestic sources. Current levels of international finance, through bilateral and multilateral sources, are not sufficient.

“Because of the magnitude of the challenge, further examination of the potential and the feasibility of mobilizing untapped international, regional and domestic sources should be explored further,” said Steiner.

By Arison Tamfu in Cairo, Egypt