A Deadly Ring of Coal:

VALE’s poisoned gift to Mozambique

By: Estacio Valoi*

15 years ago, when the Mozambican government signed the contract with VALE, almost everybody in Mozambique believed that coal would develop the country. This investigation exposes part of the destruction that VALE Moçambique is preparing to leave behind now that it has announced an agreement to sell its projects to Vulcan Minerals for US $270 million.

Located in the Province of Tete, in Mozambique, the Moatize Coal Mine was officially inaugurated in May 2011. It is owned by VALE Moçambique and Mitsui Corp and it produces 11.3 million tonnes of coal per annum.

In its 2009 annual report, VALE stated that it had 1.087 million tonnes of coal resources (both proven and probable) across all its mines and projects, of which 954 million were in the Moatize mine. The report also stated that the projected depletion date of the project was 2046.

In January 2021, VALE announced plans to pull out of the project. Then, in December 2021, VALE announced it had entered into a binding agreement with Vulcan Minerals – a company that is part of the Jindal Group – to sell the Moatize coal mine and the Nacala Logistics Corridor for US$ 270 million. However, this transaction can only take place if the Government of Mozambique approves it.

But in those brown, black concession areas held by the transnational company in the hot province of Tete, we found a troubling pattern of violence, land-grabbing and death that completely contradicts VALE’s claim of “responsibly sourced” coal.

Between 2009 and 2010, VALE resettled 1,365 families – in the Cateme and 25 de Setembro resettlements areas – in order to install the Moatize mine. Along the Nacala Corridor, an additional 2,000 families were resettled. Most of the families resettled by VALE relied on subsistence agriculture and cattle raising in order to survive.

The resettlement areas were plagued by a number of problems which have already been widely documented, such as unsafe housing (e.g. faulty infrastructure and poorly installed electrical and sewage systems), andland unsuitable for subsistence agriculture (due to bad quality of soil, no access to water and being far from markets). Although these problems have long been denounced by affected communities and various organizations at national and international level, the vast majority of them are yet to be resolved.

The Mozambican Police (PRM), including its Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR), have been “used” by VALE in several occasions. They have dispersed and repressed protesters by beating them up or shooting at them with rubber bullets and even live ammunition, and they have arbitrarily detained local brickmakers (a.k.a. oleiros) – who still seek compensation for losing their livelihoods.

To make matters worse, local journalists are being intimidated and threatened by local authorities – including the Mayor of Moatize, Carlos Portimão – and told not to report on these issues.

“If you want to report about VALE, talk with its directors, not with the locals nor with the oleiros.” – local radio directors are telling their reporters.

To make place for open-pit mining, the people who lived inside the concession areas were “forcefully removed” from their homes, from the small family farms that kept them fed, from the rivers that provided them with plenty of water and from the river banks where they produced clay bricks for a living. Today, “pushed” outside the fence, these people, along with tens of thousands of others who already lived in the outskirts of the mine, are facing a very harsh reality: there is no water left. The rivers that used to provide them with water for farming, cattle and other basic needs, have either been diverted to supply water to the mine, polluted or simply burried by tons of sand – a shameful and blatant violation of their human rights.

Unlike what some may think, the number of people severely affected by VALE goes way beyond those who have been resettled and the thousands of families who live in Bagamoyo, Nhantchere, Primeiro de Maio or Liberdade – the neighbourhoods that border the mine, under a permanent cloud of dust and whose inhabitants get sistematically sick from VALE’s pollution. The oleiros are a good example of a different kind of highly impacted group. Even though VALE has compensated some of those who were forced to hand over their land to the mining company, many others claim they were left out of the agreements.

In 2019, for example, when VALE started the expansion of the Moatize III Mine, the company cut Primeiro de Maio, Liberdade and Paiol’s access to the Moatize River, affecting brickmakers and peasants from those communities. Since then, several meetings were held between the affected people, VALE and the government. More recently VALE changed the tone and started stating that no compensation is owed to any brickmakers. While this process is dragging on, more than 4,000 oleiros are having a very hard time supporting themselves and their families.

In the Province of Tete, with the abetment of the Mozambican government, roughly half a million people are currently abandoned to their fate: to live in a deadly ring of coal for (at least) 35 years.

VALE’s arrival and the communities’ downfall

Zita, a forty-some year old widow, told us she lived with her late husband Refo Agostinho – held by many as the best brickmaker in Moatize – before they were gradually forced to give their land away to VALE. Mother of four, she and her husband Refo had brick making as their main source of income. The money was used to feed their children, pay for school and cover other needs. “They all grew up supported by money from brickwork.”

In 1993, both unemployed at the time, with no one to support them and already with a daughter to raise (the eldest), Zita and Refo decided to make a life plan and thus guarantee their family’s livelihood. It was then that they began to work in pottery and brick production near the Paiol area. At first, they were generating around 30,000 Meticais (approximately US$470) per month (depending on the season). Soon, to meet demand, they had to hire workers.

“First we had five workers, then ten and then fifteen… Payment depended on the kind of work and on each worker’s results. Some workers could make 3,000 bricks a day for about 900 to 1,000 Meticais (approximately US$15). With the money from brick making we could buy curry, we were able to build our own house, we also bought a car. At home, Refo ran other businesses. With the bricks, he set up mills and he was a welder and a panel beater too. We also used our car to transport the bricks to where our clients needed them… For 20 years we developed this activity”.

Refo died of stress and grief: he had a heart attack

“Refo lost his life after things changed. VALE took everything from us. In Chipanga, where we used to make bricks, our property was large: one hectare. My machamba [farm] was elsewhere, in Canchoeiro. VALE took us out of there but they did not want to pay us compensation (for the land), nor for having us cease our activities. They would say process X had to go to position Y, but they refused to give us money, always talking but without a solution. So, they [the brickmakers] had to organise demonstrations to receive the money. When they protested, the police arrived, intimidated him and took him to jail. He stayed (in jail) for a week, then left and continued to fight until VALE compensated us. I’m not sure how much money it was, but I heard it was about 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940).”

But the brickmaker’s life was never the same again. “After losing the land where he worked, Refo began to suffer from stomach aches and having blood pressure problems, and with that, he died. Now, I support the children and they all go to school. I depend of a single mill, which he left to us”.

Tampered community survey lists

We were in the District of Moatize when the representative of the Nhankweva brickmakers commission, Nordino Timba Chaúque, told us he was fed up with VALE’s neverending promises and unfulfilled agreements with local communities over the years. “The company is doing things the community doesn’t like.”

They started to list the brickmakers and peasants who had to be compensated in Nhankweva and other neighbourhoods in 2020, but the process is still unfinished. “A long time ago, we met with VALE to discuss these payments. The company promised us that it would pay us all – a group of 571 brickmakers – and each of us would receive 125,000 Meticais (approximately US$1960). We stopped our activities. They only paid for the trucks that took our bricks from the place they occupied to somewhere else. We were not compensated. This Wednesday, again, the company told us to come back on December 22, 2021.”

But from one Wednesday to the next, the situation remains unresolved, and now VALE says it will no longer pay any compensation to these brickmakers.

“About 500 or so people, each received 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940) to stop their activities, but they still had to pay us 125,000 Meticais each (approximately US$1960) – the value of the compensation. At one point VALE just said that it no longer recognized us and that we are not part of the registration lists.

VALE subcontracted a company – MP – to carry out the registration. The people from that company were trained and qualified professionals. But later on – in order to stall or avoid payment – VALE told us that those lists, made by their people, had been tampered by infiltrated people from the community! VALE surveyed Chipanga in 2009. They know the job. One cannot say that there were infiltrated people from the community because there were local authorities in place: government staff, technical staff from the municipality too. So, where and how did the people infiltrate?! The entire local authorities from all the neighbourhoods followed this process” – said another brickmaker.

VALE and the government keep playing hot potato. “These are VALE’s maneuvers to avoid paying us. They are the ones who used to do the registration, but they chose MP to do this registration. So, they must have the numbers. We have 3,000 people [on our list].” – says the President of the brickmakers commission.

Former employees of MP confirm that VALE claims to have 5,000 people on its list and accuses the company’s employees of tampering with the numbers. According to them, this is but a maneuver by VALE to stall the process. “We were even expelled! They confiscated our private phones and searched them. They accused us of putting extra people on the lists in exchange for money, which is not true.”

Little to nothing has been done to address all the 2008, 2010 or 2012 pending processes and cases regarding compensations, new land allocations and social projects

Paulo Vítor Maferrano, 41 years old, from Chipanga, Moatize, claims that he too made around 30,000 Meticais (approximately US$470) per month.

“Chipanga is our area. The mining company started occupying it in 2008. In the beginning, VALE said that it would not occupy Chipanga, so people who were removed from other areas came to Chipanga to make their machambas. But suddenly, VALE started moving people out of Chipanga too, which meant they had to negotiate with those people too. 2021 is about to end and people have not been compensated yet.”

Paulo’s reality is no different from that of other brickmakers. He was also left without his machamba and without his brickworks – his main source of income. “We already tried to send the documents. We went to the government, and VALE really did say that it would not pay us. So we tried to turn to other forums. (…) VALE only started working on this specific area in May 2021, these are the new lands VALE is expanding to. Neither the company nor we know the extent of the mine concession. When VALE arrived, they said that first they were going to give us 60,000 Meticais (approximately US$940) so we would leave our fields and stop our activities immediately, and then they would give us 125,000 Meticais (approximately US$1960) in compensation. But so far, they have not given us anything.”

Police violence against brickmakers and local communities

Cases of police violence – carried out by State forces to protect the interests of the mining company – date back to the beginning of the project. People have been arrested, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and sometimes real bullets and tear gas has also been used on citizens, including on pregnant women and children.

On the 20th of November 2021, four members of the Nhantchere community, who had been representing families whose homes have cracks on the walls caused by the mine explosions, were unjustly detained and remained in prison for 3 days. Shortly afterwards, on December 23rd, two brickmakers were detained for five days during a meeting where they were debating with their community what to do about VALE’s refusal to pay compensation to the expropriated brickmakers and peasants. Community members who play leading roles in the negotiation processes with VALE tend to suffer increasing reprisals and intimidation, including arbitrary and illegal detentions.

Vasco was shot inside his own home

On the 6th of May 2021, tired of VALE’s lack of interest in resolving the compensations and payments owed to people from the Primeiro de Maio neighbourhood who lost land and access to the river, a group of brickmakers and peasants occupied Section 6 of the mine and blocked the road that grants access to it, demanding answers from the company. This demonstration ended peacefully, when brickmakers reached an agreement with representatives of VALE and the government – who went to the site – and agreed that the matter would be debated the following day with the entire community, in the neighbourhood square.

But the agreed meeting on the 7th of May 2021, in Primeiro de Maio’s square, was a ‘ambush’ set up by VALE and the local government. Representatives of VALE and the local government did not come to the site. Instead, the Police – including agents of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) – showed up at the square and decided to intervene by repressing the community that was lawfully demanding its rights.

Vasco was at home. At the square, just outside his door, the population was gathering, eager to hear what the company and the government would have to say about their destroyed farms and lost lands. Neighbourhood leaderships insisted on summoning all the people in the community to await the arrival of government and VALE representatives.

“Suddenly, we realised UIR and the people were moving from one place to another. There were gunshots. They threw tear gas. People were running around, so I decided to pick up my 6 year old son from school immediately. When I got back home, we got inside the house and I shut the door. But everytime they have a meeting here at the headquarters, they come to borrow my chairs, and that day I had lent the chairs to my neighbour. So, amidst the havoc, the neighbour came to return the chairs. He knocked on the door, I peeked out the window and only saw him. I didn’t know he was accompanied by a UIR agent. I opened the door and he shot me in the stomach. No questions asked. Nothing. He just said ‘these are the agitators’ and fired the gun at me.”

Vasco was abandoned and left to die

“I was in pain. My 6-year-old son managed to take my phone out of my pocket and called his mother to inform her of the situation. His mother called a taxi driver and they managed to take me to the local hospital, but due to the serious situation I had to be urgently transferred to the city hospital [in Tete], where a doctor helped me promptly. If it hadn’t been quick, I don’t know what would have happened. I arrived unconscious and only woke up after the operation. I had a bandage around my belly, when I tried to find out I was informed that they had operated on my belly and that I had ‘dirt’ inside. They had to operate to remove it, I was in hospital for 7 days.”

Vasco had black particles inside his body – ‘dirt’. “Yes, the doctor informed me. It was because of the bullet I got in my stomach. It could even be because of the dust we inhale every day.”

Unemployed at the time, Vasco was applying for a job opening. “They called me and I was still in the hospital, but because I was in no condition to go, I asked them to give me another week, and they accepted.” Still weak from both being shot and the surgery, he was called in for the interview. At the time, with no choice, and after a long time looking for a job, he decided that, weak or not, he was going to show up at the interview. “It was sad. I was called in, and I needed to find a way to earn some money while my wound was healing. I went there but I was still unwell.”

While Vasco was in hospital, his wife sustained the family by selling cookies and other casual work from home. But since he was shot, Vasco’s health is not the same. He can’t do tasks like weeding or carrying water, and at work he has to maneuver the car using the seat belt.

“When I put on the seat belt, it goes through my belly here, and I still have stitches. I have been feeling pain whenever there are changes in temperature or when it is about to rain. The people who did this to me were not held responsible and I did not have any support. I would like to point out that the government was aware of what happened to me, and nobody came here to, at least, see how I was doing these days. So far, I have no information or response from them”.

Prosecuting VALE

At least two cases were brought up against the mining company VALE Moçambique regarding access to public interest information: one by the non-governmental organization Justiça Ambiental (JA!), and the other by the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM).

JA! demanded that “VALE’s environmental monitoring reports between 2013 and 2020 be made available, as they are public documents that should be widely known, especially by the communities that have to live with VALE’s operations on a daily basis.”

VALE claims to be a “transparent company” but denies access to documents of public interest, trying to argue in different ways against court decisions that, more than once, went Justiça Ambiental’s and OAM’s way. In the appeal filed by the mining company, VALE argues that “there is no doubt that the reports that contain the information requested by the applicant […] are of a confidential nature”.

This argument was refuted by Justiça Ambiental, who stood its ground.

Regarding case No. 26/2020, the Administrative Court – through Ruling No. 130/2020, of December 30th 2020 – gave reason to the civil society organization, concluding that “the intended information cannot be classified as confidential” since “it has to do with mining operations, namely, whether or not they are harmful to the environment” and reiterated that “the Constitution of the Republic defines the environment as a citizen’s right and determines everyone’s duties regarding this right”. Yet again, VALE appealed this decision.

OAM, in turn, asked the court to subpoena the mining company VALE Moçambique, S.A., to make available various information of public interest, including the Memorandums of Understanding and other agreements signed between the Government, VALE Moçambique and the affected communities; information regarding the total amount of taxes paid by VALE to the Mozambican State; information on ongoing resettlement processes; among others.

The Administrative Court of the City of Maputo agreed with the OAM and mandated VALE to provide the information in question. Not satisfied with this decision, VALE filed an appeal. Once the process was filed and the allegations and counter-claims presented were analyzed, the Counselor Judges of the First Chamber of the Administrative Court – through Ruling No. 119/2020, of December 15, 2020, referring to case No. 131/2020 – decided to dismiss the appeal filed by the mining company, for lack of legal basis to reverse the appealed decision, and agreed with the previous decision that condemned VALE for violating the right to information of public interest.

VALE S.A.’s posture (and VALE Moçambique is no exception) in regards to providing any relevant information of their impacts is renowned. Publicly, and in meetings, they will tell you they are keen to share any information requested by citizens and/or civil society organizations, but they never do.

In April 2021, during the General Shareholders’ Meeting of VALE S.A. in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some company’s shareholders voted not to approve the management report, as it omitted important information about the project in Mozambique. These shareholders also requested numerous documents of public interest, including documents requested by Mozambican civil society organizations regarding VALE Moçambique’s activities in Moatize. Senior executives of the company pledged to send the requested documents, but these promises, too, were not kept.

Despite so much reluctance to inform the general public about the real impacts of its activities, VALE strives to greenwash its image and constantly claims to be a transparent, ethical and honest company.

Continuous and systematic Human Rights violations

In Moatize, thick black clouds blanket the skies every time dynamite is blasted in the mine. The air is polluted, the surfaces are always covered with black dust, and maize flour can no longer be left to dry in the open air. The roads, used by VALE’s trucks, are a source of dust too.

There is a great lack of water, and the water that comes out of the tap is black like coal. The company closed, diverted, or polluted the rivers that fed thousands of people. Animals and plants are struggling too. The cattle were left without pasture and are surviving on garbage dumps scattered throughout the city of Moatize. Walking through the city, you may even get confused, and think that dogs are unusually large in the area, with leashes and all. But no, it’s cattle turned stray.

With the violent and almost daily explosions in the mines of Moatize, more than 1,000 houses in the neighbourhoods of Primeiro de Maio, Nhantchere, Liberdade and Bagamoyo have cracked walls, and many have already collapsed. These cracks in the houses of the mine’s neighbouring districts have become a registered trademark of the company in the area. The affected families have for years been demanding compensation for these damages and a decent resettlement in a place where they do not have to live with this situation.

The surroundings of VALE’s mine are also full of tragic stories that show the true face of their so-called “development”.

In September 2014, little Ester, from Primeiro de Maio, lost her life while playing in a hole opened by VALE. She was accidentally buried alive by a dump truck hired by the mining company. All that VALE did was to give the child’s familly 5,000 Meticais to help with the funeral expenses. In November 2020, in Cateme, a child died and four others were seriously injured while playing in their grandfather’s machamba, inside the resettlement built by VALE. The children found a buried object: an old war mine that exploded. Another tragic case concerns a group of children who were bathing in an open hole abandoned by VALE, which had been filled with water during the rainy season. Two children drowned because they didn’t know the hole was so deep. Neither the company nor the government were held responsible for any of these cases.

Open-pit mining: sky-high levels of pollution and public health endangerment

“Here, when people cough, black stuff comes out (of their throats), and the doctors say it’s mine dust. VALE, the government and a team from the hospital came to test people for a week. They saw that they had a cough, and that they were spitting out black things. Hence, the company never came here to give us an answer”, said one of the community members.

The levels of water and air pollution in Moatize put thousands of people at risk, many of them ending up in hospitals with respiratory problems, acute cough, tuberculosis. But for the mining company only profit matters. In 2021, the pollution situation in Moatize worsened.

According to laboratory analyses carried out on water (Liberdade neighbourhood) in 2021 at JA’s request, water and air pollution are three times above the national and international limits established by law. For example, Cadmium (Cd) levels of 0.009 mg/l were recorded in VALE’s concession area, while the levels considered admissible by Mozambique and the World Health Organization are 0.003 mg/l. Cadmium is a heavy metal that causes damage to the nervous system and can cause disturbances in fetal development, even in low concentrations.

According to hospital sources, most of the people treated at the Moatize Hospital are diagnosed with tuberculosis.

“Every day, here at the hospital, we receive a greater number of people who are diagnosed with tuberculosis due to the pollution caused by VALE here in Moatize. Pollution is affecting a lot of people, this company is hurting us, even I am feeling sick. I saw many people drinking dirty water from the river, the water is not coming as it used to. With Section 6, that VALE has just opened, all the dirt, chemicals that leave the mine, flow into the Moatize river, up to where the Revúboé river flows. This is just wrong.”

*This investigation was conducted in partnership with Mozambican NGO Justiça Ambiental JA!

JA! speaks truth to TNC’s in Europe!

 

Over the past few weeks, JA! took part in a lobby tour organised in Europe, by Friends of the Earth Europe, where we met with current partners, made new allies, shared our anti-gas struggle and confronted the companies and banks who make up the liquid natural gas industry in northern Mozambique. This tour was imperative for the campaign, because so many of the companies and banks involved in the industry are based in Europe.

The tour, which went through Rome, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels, was aimed at creating awareness about our struggle against the gas industry in Mozambique and demonstrating the critical need for a Binding Treaty on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations (TNCs) at the United Nations. Currently, there is no accountability mechanism at the UN, only guiding principles which companies do not abide by, as they see them as an impediment to their greed and profit.

 

Our partners had arranged for JA!, along with activists from the DRC and the Phillipines to meet with current and new partners and allies, as well as industry players and state authorities.

Our confrontations with the industry were often met with blatant hostility, when we tried to hold them accountable for their actions, and when we raised questions they didn’t like. We attended four annual general meetings (AGM’s), those of Shell, Natixis, Eni and Total.

Natixis, the French bank which arranged for the entrance of three major French banks to finance the Coral LNG Project¹, was so hostile at their AGM that when JA! attempted to ask a question about their negligence and ineptness in the project, they turned off the microphone and refused to answer the question. Shareholders were shouting “go home!” as JA! and partner organisations walked out of the meeting.

 

At the Shell AGM in Amsterdam, we were part of a large contingent of civil society organisations, mostly Dutch but also some European. Shell has a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Mozambique LNG to buy 2 million tonnes of gas per year for 13 years.

 

JA! and an organisation from Nigeria were the only attendees from the global South. The response to our questions was, as expected, vague, but our voice had been heard and carried in the Dutch media. Shell had little respect for activists – when the Nigerian activist raised the impacts that Anadarko’s project was having on their community in the Niger Delta, the Charles Holliday, Shell’s Chairman, responded that he should approach the ‘helpdesk’ in the foyer for assistance.

The third AGM we attended was that of Total in Paris, which is the new owner of the Mozambique LNG Project², since May when it purchased Anadarko’s Africa assets. Anadarko, however, is still operating the project, and plan to hand over the lead to Total at the end of the year. After Greenpeace disrupted the AGM last year, there was a large police presence, and for some reason that was not properly explained to us, even though dozens of activists had arranged for access to the AGM, only JA! and an activist from Greenpeace were allowed into the plenary. JA!’s question was met with a dismissive answer, with Total evading responsibility for the impacts of the gas industry on the ground, claiming that responsibility lies with Anadarko.

 

This was a theme that came up in all AGM’s that we attended, including the fourth one, that of Italian company Eni, in Rome. Eni, along with ExxonMobil has the biggest stake in operating the Coral South LNG Project in Mozambique. We found that all the companies that we confronted, including during the one-on-one meetings we had with industry financiers BNP Paribas and BPI (French Public Investment Bank) put all the blame for the impacts on Anadarko. When we pushed them for answers, it became clear that none of these companies had even looked at the Environmental Impact Assessment that Anadarko had made in 2014, and yet were blaming them for all the climate injustices that were taking place. They are conveniently ignorant.

 

JA!’s partners had arranged for us to hold meetings with several authoritative bodies, including Michel Forst, UN Rapporteur on HRD; French parliamentarians from the working group on human rights and TNC’s; the deputy director of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a parliamentarian from political party ally in Spain, Unidas Podemos; Belgian parliamentarians, and party representatives at the European Union.

 

We also met with other organisations, including Oxfam, Amnesty International, Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN), the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and Action Aid.

 

In each country we spoke at events, to full houses of activists, journalists and the general public, some meetings of over 100 people. Our partners organising the tour had built a media campaign around our visit. Here are links to some of the articles about our struggle in European media and blogs:

 

Publico (Spain)

 

Les Echos (France)

 

Basta (France)

 

Observatories de Multinationales

 

L’Humanite (France)

 

Banktrack

 

Foe Scotland

 

It was great to see the amount of interest in our campaign, once people were made aware of the issue, and on the flipside, frightening to see how little attention the industry had been given in European media. But we believe that this tour has taken us several steps forward in the following ways:

•  We have made many new partners and allies in the campaign throughout Europe, strengthening our coalition
  
• We have shared the campaign with people working on or interested in the issue of fossil fuels and climate justice, including activists, journalists, academics and students.
  
• We have directly questioned industry players one on one, from which we received some crucial information
  
• We raised the issue in large industry public platforms, AGM’s, leading to attention on written and social media, and making shareholders aware
  
• We have brought the issue to the radar of high level individuals on an EU level, and on the level of political parties, parliament and ministries

Now that we have strengthened the foundation of the Campaign in Europe, we must continue to push for answers and accountability. Push for activists in Europe to take their power as European citizens to hold their companies to account, and push them to force their governments, at national and EU level, to take responsibility for those corporations from whom they receive their tax.

1 Area 4 is operated by MRV, a joint venture company comprising ExxonMobil, Eni and CNPC, which holds a 70% interest in the concession for prospection and production in that area. Galp, KOGAS and Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos de Moçambique each hold 10% interest. ExxonMobil will lead the construction and operation of liquefied natural gas production facilities and related infrastructure on behalf of MRV, and Eni will lead the construction and operation of upstream infrastructure, extracting gas from offshore deposits and piping it to the plant.

2 The Area 1 block is operated by Anadarko Mozambique Area 1, Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Anadarko Petroleum group, with a 26.5% stake, ENH Rovuma Area One, a subsidiary of state-owned Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos, with 15%, Mitsui E&P Mozambique Area1 Ltd.(20%), ONGC Videsh Ltd. (10%), Beas Rovuma Energy Mozambique Limited (10%), BPRL Ventures Mozambique BV (10%), and PTTEP Mozambique Area 1 Limited (8.5%).

Justica Ambiental’s intervention at Eni Annual General Meeting

14 June 2019

Rome

I represent an organisation called Justica Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique in maputo. I’ve come quite a long way to ask Eni some questions… I will ask in particular questions about the onshore and offshore work in Area 1 and Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin in Mozambique, which includes the Coral Floating Liquid Natural Gas Project, and the Mozambique Liquid Natural Gas Project, and the offshore oil and gas exploration in Block ER236 off the South Coast of Durban in South Africa.

we want to give some context to the shareholders:

Although the extraction in Mozambique has not yet begun, already the project has taken land from thousands of local communities and forcefully removed them from their homes. We work with and visit most regularly the villages of Milamba. Senga and Quitupo. The project has taken away people’s agricultural land, and has instead provided them with compensatory land which is far from their homes and in many cases, inarable. Fishing communities which live within 100 metres of the sea are now being moved 10 km inland.

Furthermore, the noise from the drilling will chase fish away from the regular fishing area, and the drilling and dredging will raise mud from the seabed which will make fishing even more difficult with little visibility.

There is little to no information about the type of compensation people will receive. Communities think the ways in which people’s compensation has been measured and assessed is ridiculous. For example, the company assesses someone’s land by counting their belongings and compensating them financially for those goods. Another way is by counting the number of palm trees that one person has on their land. Most people have been given a standard size of land of 1 hectare. This is regardless of whether they currently have 1 hectare, 5 hectares, or even ten hectares.

80% of Mozambicans don’t have access to electricity, and need energy to live dignified lives. Despite this incredibly low electricity rate, the LNG projects will not help Mozambique and its people benefit from its resources. Instead the LNG will be processes and exported to other countries, in particular Asia and Europe.

The projects will have a huge negative impact on the local environment, destroying areas of pristine coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds, including endangered flora and fauna in the Quirimbas Archipelago, a UNESCO Biosphere.

Mozambique is a country that is already facing the impacts of climate change. In the last two months, two cyclones hit the country hard, as we saw most recent with Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth that together killed over 600 people and affected at least 2 million.. The EIA admits that the contribution of the project’s greenhouse gases to Mozambique’s carbon emissions will be major.

This project will require a huge investment by the Mozambican government, which would be better spent on social programs and renewable energy development. The project itself will require an investment of up US$ 30 billion. This project will divert funds that should be going to education and other social necessities, including $2 billion that the World Bank estimates is necessary to rebuild the country after the cyclones, in order to build and maintain infrastructure needed for the gas projects.

Over the last year and a half, there as been a scourge of attacks on communities in the gas region, which many communities believe are linked to the gas projects because they only began once gas companies became visible. In order to ensure the security of the gas companies and contractors, the military has been deployed in the area and maintains a strong presence, and several foreign private security companies have been contracted by the companies.

SOUTH AFRICA

While the human rights and environmental violations against the people of the South Coast are many, the particular issue I’d like to raise is that of the lack of meaningful public participation with the affected communities, who were totally excluded from the process.

Exclusivity of meetings:

Eni held a total of 5 meetings.

Three of them were at upper end hotels and country clubs in the middle class areas of Richards Bay, Port Shepstone and in Durban. This is extremely unrepresentative of the vast majority of people who will be affected, many of whom live in dire poverty: communities of as Kosi Bay, Sodwana Bay, St Lucia,, Hluluwe, Mtubatuba, Mtunzini, Stanger, Tongaat, La Mercy, Umdloti, Verulam, Umhlanga, Central Durban, Bluff, Merebank, Isipingo, Amanzimtoti, Illovu, Umkomaas, Ifafa Beach, Scottsburgh, Margate, Mtwalume, Port Edward and surrounding townships like Chatsworth, Inanda, Umlazi, Phoenix and KwaMakhuta. This is blatant social exclusion and discrimination.

During the two so-called public participation meetings with poorer communities in February and October 2018, attended by both Eni and consultants Environmental Resources Management, the majority of people affected were not invited. The meetings, held by Allesandro Gelmetti and Fabrizio Fecoraro were held in a tiny room with no chairs. Eni had not invited any government officials.

[Sasol head of group medial liaison Alex Anderson, confirming the meeting, said: “Eni, our partner, is the operator and the entity managing this process. Sasol is committed to open and transparent engagement with all stakeholders on this project, as it’s an ongoing process over the coming year. We value the engagement and the feedback we receive, so that we consider stakeholder concerns into the development of the project.”]

Eni says it dropped the finalised EIA’s off at 5 libraries for the interested parties to read. However these libraries are difficult for most of the affected communities to travel to, and one of the libraries, Port Shepstone library, was in fact closed for renovations at the time.

QUESTIONS:

Civil society in Mozambique:

The response to our question was not answered, and I would like to reformulate it.

Is Eni working with any Mozambican organisations as part of its community engagement, and which are they?

Is Eni working with any organisations, Mozambican and from elsewhere, who are NOT paid by the company?

Reforestation:

I’d like to quote an article in the FT article David Sheppard and Leslie Cook 15 March 2019- Eni to plant vast forest in push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which says, I quote:

“by planting trees which absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, companies like Eni are looking to offset their pollution that their traditional operations create.”

“Italian energy giant Eni will plant a forest 4 times the size of Wales as part of plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions”

1. Does Eni dispute the truthfulness of the Financial Times article

Eni says that it has already begun the contract process with the governments of the countries in Southern Africa, where these forest projects will take place.

1. Has the company assessed whether there actually is 81 000 hectares of unused land available for this project?

2. Has Eni already held any public participation meetings with the communities who live on the land that will be used for ?

3. who is doing this assessment and when will it begin

4. how many communities and people will be affected?

EIA ‘s:

1. In the case of Area 1, Eni responded that the responsibility for ongoing public participation with the communities of Cabo Delgado lies with Anadarko for the joint EIA. Does Eni confirm it is relying on another company to guarantee that its own project fulfills requirements for an EIA?

2. Also on Area 1, the last EIA was done in 2014? Why does Eni rely on an impact assessment that is 5 years old?

3. Eni has responded that it only concluded its EIA in 2014, but had already begun seismic studies in 2007 and prepared for exploration in 2010. Furthermore, Eni only received its license from the Mozambique government in 2015. This is a whole 8 years after it had begun seismic studies.

Why did Eni begin studies that affect the environment and people before completing an EIA?

Decarbonisation:

This question was not sufficiently answered: I have asked why Eni’s decarbonisation strategy does not align with its actions in Mozambique, where the EIA says, and I quote from Chapter 12: “The project is expected to emit approximately 13 million tonnes of CO2 during full operation of 6 LNG trains.”

By 2022 “the project will increase the level of Mozambique’s GHG emissions by 9.4%”

“The duration of the impact is regarded as permanent, as science has indicated that the persistence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is said to range between 100 and 500 years, and therefore continues beyond the life of the project”.

I ask again, how does this align with Eni’s decarbonisation strategy?

Private security:

1. Who is Eni using as their private security companies in Mozambique and in South Africa?

2. What was the legal process the company went through to contract these private security companies?

3. If any companies are not registered locally, what legal process did Eni go through to bring them to Mozambique and South Africa?

Contractors:

1. Will Eni provide us with a list of all their contractors in Mozambique and in South Africa?

2. if not why not?

Jobs in South Africa:

You have not answered our question here –

How many jobs will Eni create at its operation in SA?

How many of these jobs will be paid by Eni?

Contract

I ask this in the name of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance. The organisation requested Eni to make available the contract signed with the Dept of Environmental Affairs and Petroleum Agency South Africa that gives Eni permission to conduct seismic testing. Eni has said no, because the right to the document lies with a contractor.

Reposting as a reminder of how scared &ugly banks are @natixis cut my mic when I asked about HR abuses at the Moz gas project they finance pic.twitter.com/RSe1AvZ4gx

— Ilham Rawoot 🇵🇸 (@ilhamsta) May 30, 2019

Petitions to government institutions fall into oblivion

On the 21st of September 2016, Justiça Ambiental, in partnership with the World Rainforest Movement, submitted to the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, to Green Resources and to Portucel a petition signed by 12332 people exposing the numerous conflicts and social, environmental and economic impacts – especially in the local communities directly affected. The petition stated the following:

“On September 21st, on the occasion of the International Day of Struggle Against Tree Monocultures, we, the undersigned organizations, groups, movements and individuals, expressed our solidarity and support to the communities that are fighting against the expansion of these large plantations. We demand that Green Resources, Portucel and all other companies and financial capital investors who are usurping land or planning to support the capture of fertile agricultural land for tree monocultures in eastern and southern Africa return it to the communities. By doing so, they can help prevent new conflicts between plantation companies and governments and contribute to solve the many that already exist across the region. We demand that the Government of Mozambique maintain its Land Law and ensure that the rights of communities to land, water and food are duly respected.”

The conflicts and impacts of monoculture plantations are not exclusive to rural communities in Mozambique. In fact, they are a characteristic of this type of investment and can be found everywhere where plantations of this type are promoted.

The petition was submitted to the aforementioned bodies with the knowledge of:

The Office of the President of the Republic

The Parliament

The Attorney General’s Office

The Governor of the Province of Zambézia

The Governor of the Province of Niassa

The Governor of the Province of Nampula

However, to date, after more than 2 years, none of the institutions above deigned to respond…

These public institutions, that we are told exist to serve and defend the interests of the people, are the ones who systematically ignore their concerns, demands and petitions…

In August 2018, Justiça Ambiental, ADECRU (Academic Action for the Development of Rural Communities) and Nampula’s UPC (Provincial Peasants Union) facilitated the process of drafting and submitting a petition on behalf of the communities affected by Green Resources, which contained some 3406 signatures from members of affected communities. The petition exposed in detail the innumerable situations these communities were subjected to and the various attempts at conflict resolution that have had no results at all. This last petition was submitted to the following institutions:

Ministry of Agriculture and Food Safety, addressed to the Minister;

Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, addressed to the Minister;

The Parliament’s 5th Committee – Committee on Agriculture, Economy and the Environment;

Green Resources Mozambique;

Mozambican Bar Association;

Norfund;

Embassy of Norway in Mozambique; and

National Commission on Human Rights

Of these institutions, only the National Human Rights Commission responded and was showed interest in investigating the matter, however, so far nothing else has happened.

Land conflicts persist, communities affected and deceived with promises of better living and employment are still waiting for a response, they continue to wait for a solution to their many complaints, and to believe that there will be answers to their many appeals !!!

More frightening than our government’s silence and inaction over these petitions and complaints regarding this type of investment, is that it continues to promote the monoculture plantations business, it continues to invite investors and distribute land that is not vacant, nor is it infertile or marginal – as they claim in order to defend their investments.

The latest versions of the Forestry Policy and Implementation Strategy, of the 2035 Forest Agenda and of the National Forestry Program, which are allegedly still under public discussion, clearly demonstrate that our government, particularly the environment and forest sectors, is far from realizing the scale of the social, environmental and even economic impacts of this investment.

Even more serious than the complete absence of current knowledge about the negative impacts of large monoculture plantations on the environment, in particular on maintaining the ecological balance on which we all depend, is the arrogance with which they refuse to learn from the many examples that exist throughout the world. It is completely unacceptable and absurd to hear a forestry technician effusively defend that monoculture plantations are forests and then insist by asking “are those not trees?”! It is equally unacceptable that the definition of forests can be altered to accommodate the interests of many false solutions such as REDD and the commodification of nature. Yet, this is precisely what is happening in the sector.

Important instruments such as the 2035 Forest Agenda and the National Forestry Program are being developed under the leadership of government’s “strategic partners”, with tremendous economic interests in the sector, such as the World Bank that has poured millions and millions of dollars in these “make-believe” processes. Yet we, the Mozambican organizations that stand our ground against the complete pillage of our resources, are the ones who are constantly accused of serving foreign interests. The influence and power enjoyed by these “strategic partners” who finance and direct these processes is visible and frightening. Who rules our country? Are we really sovereign? Or is that speech valid only when your “strategic partners” and our eternal “financiers” are angry with your crazy adventures with public money? Are we only sovereign then?

Public participation is still a huge challenge, and it does not seem to us that there is a real desire to improve, since this way it is much easier to conduct the processes without much resistance. Mozambican civil society barely participates in public discussion processes, whether about environmental aspects or other issues. The participants of these meetings are mostly representatives of civil society organizations and other organizations and sometimes some students. This weak participation also tells us a great deal about the way citizens feel about these processes and, above all, what can be expected of them.

In the case of the above-mentioned instruments, it should be noted that technical committees have been set up for the elaboration and discussion of these, but the space attributed to civil society organizations is always very small and it is not clear how organizations are “chosen” to participate . JA! participated in the technical committee and despite the numerous comments on the various versions of the document, nothing was really considered and properly analyzed. Our natural resources, our forests and ecosystems are only treated as profit-making resources, we do not consider their biological importance and the fact that we are part of this planet and depend on the biological services that these ecosystems provide us and that allow life on Earth.

It seems childish to remember that we do not own Planet Earth and nature, we are part of it. We are the most stupid and destructive part of it…

Our stupidity is demonstrated over and over again by the state of our planet, by the state of our forests, rivers and other ecosystems… We don’t see the other animals – the ones we call irrational – destroying their habitat as humans do… for profit!

JA! Visit finds confusion and distrust in Cabo Delgado gas region

When JA! team visited Pemba at the end of February, 2019, the biggest city in Cabo Delgado province, to learn about the current situation of the ‘gas rush’ in northern Mozambique, it quickly became apparent to us that there is very little clarity and transparency about what is actually happening in the gas industry. Attacks on communities, land grabs, the stage of the companies’ operations, and even which companies are involved, have left people uncertain and confused.

 

The industry is constantly changing, with one example at the time being the pending takeover of US company Anadarko, which is the leader of one of the two major projects since it first ‘discovered’ gas in the Rovuma Basin in 2010. Just two weeks ago, Chevron put in a bit to purchase Anadarko for $ 33 billion, and a mere few days later, Occidental Petroleum tried to outbid them with $ 38 billion.

This has huge implications – communities who have been in communication with Anadarko about resettlement and compensation, or already signed agreements with them, the government’s financial agreements with Anadarko and investments in the project – these will all need to change, and more frighteningly, nobody knows how they will change.

 

Furthermore, the stages of the gas projects are constantly changing, new contractors come in and new deals are signed in the blink of eye. The official information out there is that In 2006, 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas was discovered in the Rovuma Basin off the coast of northern Mozambique. There are two concession areas that the Mozambique government has already given the rights away to:

Area 1, the location of the Mozambique LNG Project, which was led by Anadarko, but will now be led by Chevron and Occidental Petroleum, and Area 4, the location of the Coral LNG Project that is lead by Eni and Exxon.*

And both projects have secured purchasers which ultimately has given them the financial green light to operate.

 

Over the last year, there have been many violent attacks on villages in the gas region, and there are different theories about who is responsible and who benefits from them. Due to these attacks, on this trip the JA! Team was unable to travel to the communities with which we work near Palma.

Instead, our focal point that we work with closely, arranged to bring two community members to meet us in Pemba instead.

 

Even though we were unable to travel to Palma during this visit, just meeting with people in Pemba – NGOs, activists and journalists – pointed us to an increasing number of issues arising. Basically, the more people we spoke to, the more people we realized we needed to speak to.

Two people from communities being affected by the industry, Crisanto Silva from Senga, and Burahani Adinane from Milamba, traveled six hours to tell us about the situation they are facing now.

 

Mr Burahani told us how his community left Milamba in February and are staying with family in Palma because they felt very unsafe, in constant fear of being attacked. He says that at the end of last year, Anadarko made an agreement with the community telling them what they would receive as compensation. They have not yet signed that agreement with the government, and Anadarko has not returned that agreement document to them as they said they would, so they are in a constant state of uncertainty and limbo.

 

He says that the compensation assessment process has been ridiculous – one way the company assesses someone’s land is by counting their belongings and compensating them financially for those goods.

 

“People with 5 hectares (ha) of land are going to get only 1.5 ha in compensation,” he says. “I have 64 ha but will only get 1.5 ha!  The company did the measurement by counting the number of trees in the plot. I had 583 trees, but how do I fit that in 1 hectare?”

 

The fishing community is being moved 10 km inland, away from the sea, where it will be very difficult for them to get to their fishing grounds, which will also be the location of a new port construction project. And actually, people have lost access to the sea even before the process has been completed.

 

“Now we will be resettled from the sea,” says Mr Burahani, “and personally, i don’t know how to do anything but fish”.

 

Crisanto Silva, from Senga, which is the village that the removed communities will be resettled in, told us about the problem of the military in the area. Following the violent attacks on villages, mainly those around or in the gas region,  that have been taking place since October 2017, the government has brought the military, allegedly to protect the communities from the attackers. Nobody is sure about who is responsible for the attacks, but there are many theories going around. The official government line is that they are carried out by Muslim extremists, but many others believe that gas companies, or powerful people in government are responsible themselves.

 

However, Mr Crisanto says that the military who is supposed to be protecting them, instill fear in the community instead. They stand around drinking beer, says Mr Crisanto, and give the people of Senga a curfew of 8pm, and then beat up people who are out after that. “But the army is only in the village till midnight,” Mr Crisanto says, “which I don’t understand… We are too afraid to go to the fields but the army refuses to escort us, so we are left without food.”

 

Mr Crisanto also says that he knows the ecosystem will be completely destroyed, and the Anadarko and Exxon factories are right next to the port that will be built. The port will go 2km into the sea, and the excavation is disturbing the sea bed. This is really affecting fishing patterns and the amount of fish in the area.

 

After speaking with the community members, we held several other meetings that provided important information. One of the other urgent issues is that of media oppression – two community journalists from Cabo Delgado were imprisoned for a long time, with one, Amade Abubacar, detained from 5 January to 23 April 2019. While the official reason for his arrest is unclear, Amnesty International says the he was arrested for documenting deadly attacks by armed groups against civilians.

 

This has left the few journalists who are not following the mainstream government rhetoric in constant fear of their lives or of losing their credibility if they write or say anything which does not align with it. The journalists we spoke with insisted on speaking to us in our hotel room because even being seen with us would put them in danger.

 

We spoke with a few NGO’s, some of whom provided us with very interesting information. We learnt about the vast current issues with the resettlement process. For example, the areas where Anadarko plans to give people machambas (farmlands) is at high risk of attacks, and it is very difficult for civil society to physically go there to protect people from these attacks. Communities feel that monetary compensation is not enough, as it is their ancestral land that is being taken from them. When they have meetings with companies about the process, they are not given the space to ask questions, and when they hold meetings with civil society, the military appears to disrupt the meeting. Anadarko is also known to hold resettlement meetings with individual families, which is divisive, and there is growing hostility over who gets which machambas.

 

We also learnt that many areas in Cabo Delgado, including areas where people are given machambas, are actually not arable, because Portuguese colonizers used them to grow cotton plantations which utilized many chemicals and degraded the soils.

 

Another rather disturbing piece of information is that while we met several NGOs doing interesting work, there are very few in Cabo Delgado working on the gas issue that do not receive funding for some or other service from Anadarko. It raises questions of independence and transparency for us when NGOs receive money from the very companies they are supposed to be challenging.

 

After those few days we spent in Pemba, it became clear that things are changing very quickly – the presence of the companies and private security is growing, fear of attacks and military is increasing and people are already losing their homes and livelihoods. There is a sense of unease in the air – many people don’t want to talk, or if they do, are afraid to say anything openly against the government or industry.

 

There is no doubt that the need to stop the industry is urgent, as the devastation we are already seeing may be irreversible. We will continue to work closely with the affected communities, as part of a campaign that uses different approaches – local and international to stop gas in Mozambique!

Broken Lives,Stolen Futures. A short documentary made by JA! of the sad situation of the communities in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, affected by the gas exploration..

 

Of Coral FLNG, ExxonMobil owns a 35.7 percent interest in Eni East Africa S.p.A. (to be renamed Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A.), which holds a 70 percent interest in Area 4, and is co-owned with Eni (35.7 percent) and CNPC (28.6 percent). The remaining interests in Area 4 are held by Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos E.P. (10 percent), Kogas (10 percent) and Galp Energia (10 percent).

In Mozambique LNG, Anadarko (soon to be taken over by Chevron or Occidental Petroleum or?) leads the LNG project with a 26.5 percent ownership stake. Other owners include the Mozambique state energy company, 15 percent; Japan’s Mitsui Group, 20 percent; India’s ONGC Videsh, 16 percent; India’s Bharat, 10 percent; Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production, 8.5 percent; and Oil India Ltd., 4 percent.

Trump vs. California vs. Climate

In early September, JA staff participated in a series of interesting events in San Francisco. The Governor of the state of California, Jerry Brown was hosting the interestingly-named Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) from 12-14 September, 2018.

Of course, the world knows that the US politics is dominated by the toxic and racist Trump and his nonsensical claim that climate change is a Chinese hoax. But what is happening in California, known to be a progressive state in the conservative US? When Trump was elected as US President in November 2016, the California Governor Brown opposed him and came out in support of climate action. So that sounds good, right? So is California a climate leader?

The answer unfortunately is no. It is very important to oppose Trump and his vile nonsense. But just opposing Trump is a very low bar to set, and that is what Gov Brown did with his GCAS event. Friends of the Earth US explains perfectly: “Governor Brown talks a good game on climate change. But despite all the talk, oil and gas remains a very big business in California, putting local communities at risk and accelerating global climate chaos … true climate leadership requires more than promises and press conferences that denounce Trump. California promotes itself as a global climate leader – but Big Oil is aggressively turning to processing some of the planet’s dirtiest crude oil at refineries in the state, putting local communities, coastal waterways and the global climate in jeopardy.”

Essentially Governor Brown and Big Oil in California are using the Trump idiocy to make their market mechanisms look like ‘climate action’ and to normalize their false solutions.

US justice-based movements, such as Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, joined with others including Friends of the Earth US to see through this charade. They created the ‘Brown’s Last Chance campaign. They understood that GCAS was a giant green-washing moment and climate action needs to be deeper and call for system change. They demanded that Gov Brown stop any new oil and gas permits and that he announce a phase out of existing fossil fuel production.

The fight against California REDD continues

Now, the plot thickens. This is not just about oil and gas, but California is also pushing false solutions. It would be the kinds of oil refineries mentioned above which would use the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) credits from Chiapas and Acre and other potential sub-national partner jurisdictions to supposedly “offset” their greenhouse gas emissions pollution under the California cap-and-trade program as it is envisioned to expand in the near future.

So JA joined indigenous peoples from Brazil to California to Canada, demanding that California stop their dangerous REDD scheme. We protested outside the fancy Parc 55 hotel where Gov Brown was planning his REDD scheme. Chief Ninawa from the Huni Kui tribe in Brazil went inside to deliver our statement to the Governor and his team. “No REDD!” – we chanted outside.

‘Rise for Climate’ march

To show people power, we often need to come to the streets. The California activists organised a big march called the ‘Rise for Climate’ march. It was led by local indigenous and frontline communities with a strong foundation in grassroots environmental justice organizing. We mobilized to stop dirty energy everywhere, and to say no to dangerous distractions like carbon trading, which will do nothing to stop the climate catastrophe. We marched alongside communities devastated by wildfires barely 55 miles (90 kms) away from San Francisco, and Puerto Rican movements whose entire island was devastated by hurricanes just a year ago.

The demands of the march were strong, stating:

We demand Real Climate Leadership, which requires:

• Environmental, racial, and economic justice for all
• No new fossil fuel development and a managed decline of existing fossil fuel production
• A just transition to 100% renewable energy that protects workers, Indigenous peoples and frontline communities — both in these extractive industries and more broadly — and ensures family-sustaining jobs with the right to unionize, that are safe for people and the planet
• Just and equitable resiliency and recovery efforts led by the communities most impacted;

Over 30,000 people came to the streets in this amazing march which shut down the streets of downtown San Francisco.

Sol2sol Alternative Summit

We need to oppose the wrong actions our governments are pushing. But we also need to show our own peoples’ solutions. The California activists organised the amazing alternative summit called Sol2Sol, which stands for ‘Solidarity to Solutions’, to spotlight frontline community solutions. JA participated and we spoke about our work in Mozambique.

Sky Protectors

A new movement is emerging called ‘Sky Protectors’. We are activists who have always defended the land, the water, and now we are being called on to defend the sky too. Geo-engineering is a dangerous phenomena that refers to the deliberate, large-scale technological manipulations of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and soils with the stated aim of weakening some of the symptoms of climate change.

Geo-engineering is risky, unsafe with scary implications, it would change rainfall patterns and other weather phenomena in a way that we don’t even understand yet. That’s why we need to stop it and protect the sky. JA! joined a meeting in San Francisco where we learnt about some geo-engineering projects that are already planned and we strategized on how to oppose them. Currently, projects are being planned in North America, South America and Asia, but these dangerous projects can come to our continent of Africa at any time.

One type of project wants to put sulphates into the stratosphere, with the aim to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the earth. This will completely change rain and wind patterns, it is predicted to disrupt the Asian monsoon and increase droughts in Africa and Asia. Also, given the current geo-politics and inequities between and among countries, can you imagine a powerful corporation or country controlling the thermostat of the world? They could hold us all hostage to their whims. This would be the militarization of the sky and we need to defend our sky from this. This is not a plot from a sci-fi movie; there is a real Stratospheric Aerosol Injection experiment planned in Arizona state of US called Scopex.

Another crazy idea is called Ocean Fertilization, where the idea is to throw iron filings into the ocean to capture atmospheric CO2. Can you imagine what this will do to the marine life and the fisherfolk who depend on the ocean? Again, this is not a made up story; a project called Oceanos is being planned off the coasts of Chile, Peru and Canada.

Want to hear one more awful idea? In the most sensitive ecosystem of the Arctic, in Alaska, a project called Ice 911 is being planned. The idea is to throw glass microbeads on top of the ice and in the sea in Alaska to absorb CO2. In our meeting, we were joined by Native American people from Alaska who were angry at this project and vowed to oppose it in their territories.

Geo-engineering is dangerous and risky. But worse, it tries to perpetuate the false belief that climate change can be stopped with techno-fixes. It deliberately ignores the fact that the climate crisis and the other inter-related crises we are facing are a result of today’s unjust economic, social and political systems. The unsustainable manner in which we produce, distribute and consume things are devastating our ecology and our people. That’s what needs to be changed. Only system change will stop climate change.

“NATURE-BASED TOURISM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”

It was with pomp and circumstance that the “NATURE-BASED TOURISM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE” took place between the 7th and 9th of June 2018 in one of the most expensive hotels in Maputo. A gala dinner and a bunch of speeches by people who all seemed to be very aware that we should have a nature-oriented tourism…

News about the Conference filled the media every day, and there was not a single STV newscast that did not feature it, bringing it straight to our homes.

All entrepreneurs, investors, government members, statesmen and former presidents, as well as world conservation specialists, were present at the great event of the month, advertised daily in prime-time television, with beautiful images of Mozambique’s fauna and flora enchanting our eyes – such is the natural beauty of this country.

But unfortunately, the reality is different. Nature was only a pretext. A beautiful word. An excuse to call in more investors. Because being sustainable, protecting the environment and being environmentally conscious is very fashionable today.

All these beautiful words are only meant to try to secure more and more investments. Hypocrisy abounds in our social environment. And if, this time around, this is the chosen narrative, in other occasions pollution-prone activities that damage the environment severely are shamelessly promoted: like coal mining in Tete or the oil and gas industries offshore drilling in one of Mozambique’s most beautiful nature sanctuaries: Cabo Delgado – the province of the crystal clear waters of Pemba, Ibo, Quirimbas, Mocímboa da Praia and many other beaches.

From Rovuma to Maputo, across the Mozambican coast, inland and on the islands along the Indian Ocean, there is immense tourist potential. However, the oil and gas industry, the timber industry, agribusiness and other environmentally damaging investments are competing with this potential. The countless beauties and natural riches scattered throughout Mozambique – such as the beautiful Inhambane Province with its beautiful beaches and the beautiful Bazaruto Archipelago, the plateaus and hills of Chimanimani, Mount Mabu, the beautiful Gorongosa or the unique biodiversity of our reserves and natural parks – are being threatened by pipelines, deep-sea ports, forest plantations, monocultures…

Throughout Mozambique many are the examples of this, and nature is definitely the last thing in their minds when they sign these great business deals, memorandum of understanding, mining concessions or even the fabulous contracts to build hotels or lodges in clear contempt for the most basic environmental standards.

Mozambique is suffering. There are huge open craters in the mountains, there are corals being destroyed by oil rigs, there are entire forests being (legally or illegaly) destroyed for its wood. And they still have the nerve to say that they are defending nature? What they are doing indeed is spending millions of meticals on yet another business conference in an expensive hotel with a gala dinner where the price of a meal is three times the value of a minimum wage. This, in a country where there are people dying of acute malnutrition. A country that carries on its back a huge debt. A country with all kinds of basic needs, from transport to health care.

“NATURE-BASED TOURISM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”? Forgive me gentlemen, but really?!! We need serious leaders that think about the good of the country and the improvement of life of the Mozambican people, not of leaders burping caviar at 5-star hotels in Maputo and selling nature by the square meter to the first crook that shows up!

Think seriously about nature and everything that is being destroyed instead of promoting these ridiculous deals in the name of the nature. Nature does not deserve this treatment, nor does the Mozambican People.

Dirty minds don’t understand clean energy

Tech Energy vs Commodity Energy

Change is always difficult. Whatever system we are trying to change has evolved, adapted and solidified its behavior, vision, tendencies, bad habits and much more to a point of blind dependency. The more complex the system, the more linkages and tentacles of rootedness are working to keep things as they are.

This makes it hard to envision how a new system could work, even if our organizations are committed to system change in the face of multiple crises. Especially given the evermore specialization and compartmentalization of our current global system, change gets bogged down. Every time we look at a new, better sub-component of the system we notice how it doesn’t fit well with the other older components and deem it unsustainable, uncompetitive, etc. The problem lies in that we are focusing on improving the existing system instead of developing a new way of achieving a old goal.

We will be examining how this plays out in the energy sector and the vision towards a carbon-free future in the midst of the global climate crisis. Due to the length and diversity of the issues, we will be addressing it in a series of articles during the next few months, but for this article we would like to explore the notion of ‘Tech Energy’ and ‘Commodity Energy’, and the world of differences between them.

In large part, traders see energy as energy, and both are often traded in tandem. In general, most energy experts come from a commodity-based background and as alternative, clean, tech energy started appearing, they just added them to the list of options for achieved their energy goals. This was and continues to be a big mistake, because the economics of the two energy types are vastly different and require very different skill sets to deal with their obstacles, projections, feasibility, growth and general assessments for how to make each function.

To explore these differences, we will use the example of solar (tech energy) and oil (commodity energy). A photo-voltaic (PV) solar panel is, in simple terms, electrical circuitry embedded in a silicon wafer, a definition that could also be used to define a computer chip, hence PV manufacturers have been at times (misleadingly) defined them as “semiconductors”. However, even though using this definition for both fails short, it makes sense to use the same economic model for both, because PV solar panels and computer chips behave in similar ways economically, hence our use of the term ‘tech energy’. To highlight this reality, see the Graph 1 below.

Graph 1: Costs of Computer Processing Power, Electricity from Solar PV, and Oil Price per Barrel, 1976-2014 (G.Jabusch 2015)

It is clear to see the similarity of drastic price declines in solar PV in cost per Watt (green line) and in computing power in cost per GigaFLOP (blue line) over a period of almost 4 decades. This decline is driven by increasing demand of new technologies, massive scaling up, and the ever-evolving technological frontier.

In comparison, oil follows the usual pattern of commodities that fluctuate in price according to demand and supply factors. Even though graph 1 shows that the cost PV solar has decreased by 170 times, if we compare it to oil, solar has improved its cost basis by 5,355 times relative to oil since 1970 (T. Seba ). Oil gets expensive when economies are growing, but PV decreases due to its sensitivity to demand/ scaling and its independence from a finite resource like oil which needs to be extracted from the ground. PV is also less geographically dependent and therefore more resistant to Geo-political risk, the threat of which will further increase when climate change impacts start causing more migration, water scarcity, land loss and ecological crashes.

Actually, technology is so sensitive to demand and scaling that it mainly gets cheaper over time. The other factors that make commodities fluctuate usually affect technologies in the rate of decrease, but the decrease is certain. Imagine the benefits if the global economy could apply this tech cost dynamic to energy. The more commodity-based energy we use, the more expensive it will get, always placing a weight on the growth, but with tech energy it gets cheaper the more we use.

Then there are the unavoidable costs of a commodity energy like oil. Oil costs a lot to explore, costs a lot to extract, costs a lot to refine, costs a lot to transport and if you consider the endless list of impacts at every level, it costs a hell of a lot to consume. In 2014 the world had one of the lowest levels of new fossil fuels discoveries in recent history (less than 5 months of global consumption), yet it was the highest cost ever for developing new oil supplies (almost 700 billion USD). Not only are these costs constantly increasing for lower returns, even when the barrel and pump prices are low or high, but these costs are transferred to all of us in numerous ways such as government subsidies, health costs, ecological costs and climate change.

For example, in 2013 for every $1 that any of the top 20 global oil and gas producers invested in new fossil fuel exploration, more than $2 were subsidized by the G-20 governments. In total, the G-20 provides $452 billion a year in subsidies to fossil fuel production, which is almost 4 times what the ENTIRE world provides in subsidies to renewables ($121 billion). We may think its only a rich country tendency, but no, in sub-Saharan Africa, energy subsidies (especially petroleum but also coal and gas) eat up on average around 5% of our GDP (IMF). Here in Mozambique we pay 1%-1,5% of our GDP for just petrol and diesel fuel subsidies alone and during the recent economic crisis our fuel debt was increasing at $7-10 million USD per month (IMF). Just to put this spending into perspective, at an African level, the percentage of GDP that goes to health is around an average of 6% based on the 2013 data for 51 African countries.

One additional interesting fact linked to health, the estimated cost of the impacts of fossil fuels on health, not only is it not covered by the fossil fuel sector, but is a huge part of the national health cost of many countries. In the US, 1/3 of healthcare costs are from burning fossil fuels ($9000/person/year, totaling to almost $900 billion) and worldwide 30-40% of deaths are due to pollution (A.Lightman 2014). In Europe it has been calculated that the health cost of burning coal are as high as 42.8 billion Euros per year (Heal 2013) and when you consider that the dirtiest power plants, industrial parks, mines, etc are in the global south we can only imagine the scale of the health impacts and their associated costs. However, we will cover the true cost of fossil fuels in a future article on the issue, including ecosystem loss, climate change and more.

All of this information is not new or unknown to our political elite, or at least it shouldn’t be. The truth of the matter is that the transition has been slow because the system doesn’t want it to happen. Research has shown that the biggest obstacle for clean energy to succeed is the lack of political will and proper polices, not technology, not costs and not economics. Another issue is that we often hear people discussing how to fix the system, the problem is that there isn’t anything to fix. The capitalist system and one of its founding pillars “fossil fuels” has been working the way it has been designed to, and very efficiently to the benefit of a small group of elites. Lets not forget the fact that “Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world” (Oxfam report 2017). So when we hear the excuses that solar is too expensive, not competitive, it isn’t reliable, can’t cope with big demand, etc, etc, please understand that either the person hasn’t done their home work, or has vested interests in fossil fuels, or has come from a commodity energy understanding of the economics. In the case of the last one, we can empathize, because at quick glance we also underestimated the power of tech based economics.

We remember when the cellular network was starting in Mozambique, we just couldn’t understand how it would work given the then super high cost for installation of the network, the air time cost and the extremely high cost of cell phones, etc. Especially in a poor country like Mozambique, with a small group of elites. The market seemed too small, but when we learned that the strategy was also focusing on the lower income urban population, and even rural areas, we were even more confused of how it could be sustainable. Luckily, we learned from a friend who was a telecommunications expert and had a good understanding of how the tech-based economics works, and when that person explained to us step by step, it was amazing how these obstacles are overcome and it was the first time we became aware of how sensitive technology based economics are to increasing demand, massive scaling and technological advancements.

For clean alternative energy to succeed we need to have the people with the right economic understanding for the unique differences that tech based energy brings, and if we continue to use the experts that come from dirty energy and commodity-based mindset, we will continue to delay, at a huge cost, the inevitability and necessity of a carbon-free future. Now, we understand that the use of the word inevitable may seem strong to some, but it is actually not.

As the cost of solar energy continues to decrease it will gain market shares from fossil fuels. Already in 42 of the 50 biggest U.S. cities, solar power is now cheaper than electricity from the power grid (G. Jabusch 2015). The higher cost for lower returns of exploring and extracting new fossil reserves, the pressure to mitigate climate change, the decreasing of subsidies and take up of the cost associated of the numerous impacts caused by fossil fuels, and more, are all trends that are gaining support and these pressures will sooner or later slowly strangle this monster called fossil fuels. Let us be humane and give this monster a quick death and move on to a new clean energy system, but this time we must also make it socially just. This topic we will cover in detail on one of our upcoming articles of our series around Good Energy.

The “ A, B , C “ of Large and Mega Dams

 What is a Dam, large and Mega?

It is a big cement hall, that stop the course of the river. The word seems to be related to the Greek word taphos, meaning “grave” or “grave hill”, in reality it is a tombstone for the river.

By the International Commission of Large Dams (ICOLD), a large dam is higher than 15m while a Mega dam is over 100m. Most Mega dams worldwide are used for energy production.

Mega dams have been the center of many debates, research and studies for the last decade.

Between 1930 and 1970, the boom of Mega dams was seen to be synonymous with “economic development” and a symbol of human ability to assert control over nature. But then the truth of their negative impacts started to arise, and it become the center of many debates and arguments around costs-versus-benefits, ecological impacts, social impacts, etc.

From one side the proponents claim dams as a source of energy and as such a tool for development, from another side the opponents state that those benefits are far outweighed by disadvantages such as loss of communities livelihoods and rivers ecosystems to name just some.

The late 1980s and 1990s era, were marked by large protests, and controversial debates about mega dams. Pressure and huge campaigns from civil society, social movements and communities affected by dams to stop financing mega-dams. Same financed institutions, with the pressure and information about crimes against human rights, by mega dams financed by the world bank, funds were decrease to the world Bank Dams projects. Due to such an outcry, an independent commission under the chairmanship of Kader Asmal, the South African water minister, was created in April 1997, the “World Commission on Dams (WCD)”, to research the environmental, social and economic impacts of mega Dams globally. The WCD was composed of members of civil society, academia, private sector, professional associations and government representatives. The report findings and recommendations were launched under the patronage of Nelson Mandela in November 2000. The WCD found that while “ dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, and benefits derived from them have been considerable… in too many cases an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment.” The study also made recommendations and provided guidelines which all dam projects should follow, including five core values and seven priorities detailed below:

Values

Equity,

Sustainability,

Efficiency,

Participatory decision-making and

Accountability.

Priorities

Gaining public acceptance,
comprehensive options assessment,

Addressing existing dams,

Sustaining Rivers and Livelihoods
Recognising entitlements and sharing benefits,
Ensuring compliance and

Sharing rivers for peace, development and security.

For a while, the understanding of the large costs of Mega dams started to become a reality, but suddenly with the climate crises, they came back with the tag of “Solution for Climate change”. But it is not a solution. It is riddled with problems and earns our tag of “false solution”.

At JA’s last year climate justice meeting “Seeding Climate justice II”, held in Maputo, JA invited Rudo Sanyanga, Africa Director of International Rivers (IR), who presented the impacts of dams on the climate, and debunked the myth that mega dams are one of the energy sources to address our climate crises. Without going into the known social and environmental impacts, the presenter began her presentation by asking “Hydro dams, do they provide CLEAN energy? NO, THEY DON’T, ITS NOT TRUE! They exacerbate climate change instead”. Dams especially tropical dams can often produce a huge amount of methane and carbon dioxide from rotting biomass in the reservoir. Then there are huge impacts of droughts and floods on the energy production, and dependency of hydroelectric on a changing climate is questionable.

Rudo spoke about the breakthrough research done in 2012, “ A Risky Climate for Southern African Hydro”, there was a lot of opposition, attacked by politicians, statements that IR ‘’was scaring people, and that was not going to happen’’. But it is real, 4 years after, we see that is happen, this year, Lake Kariba never went above 20% capacity, Lesotho Katse dam was 63%, Zambia that was 80% dependent of Hydro, due to a 2 years drought is turning into solar. This is real , Zambezi Basin countries will have a decrease in stream flow, as many studies estimate and a decrease of run-off to be between 26% to 40% by 2050. No one is trying to scare people, but it is already happen and is going to only become worse.

We recall back in 2012, when Rudo come to Maputo to present the finding of this study, we were attacked by most of the government participants at the launch meeting, to the point of becoming quite an ugly and unproductive meeting.

We raised the question again, how can Mozambique build a dam as risky as it is Mphanda Nkuwa is to the environmental and communities, seismic risk, and now adding the economic and climate change risk? Those risks exist, due to extreme climate changes, and they must be included in any evaluation and decision to build or not a dam.

But as the researcher stated on their study, that government, dam builders and decisions makers, are not taking into consideration the economic risks associated to climate change, in his words “ There is been a neglect of climate risks in hydropower planning – in an approach that might be called either ‘wait and see’ or ‘head in the sand’ ”.

But it still amazes me how difficult is for people to understand and see mega dams for what they really are: a monstrosity that destroys lives, livelihoods and rivers ecosystem, to say some. In a way I can understand if you look into a coal power station, you see ugliness, you see smoke, pollution and a landscape that no one wants to live there if they have a choose. At the other end, a mega dam is an huge infrastructure that makes any engineers proud of it, a lake, and an enormous hall that splits water in amazing speed, and a sound that make you feel small in this world… for sure looks much better then a coal power station. But it is just that, a facade. Because it is not synonymous with development, just ask the 40-80 million people displaced by dams, how their lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. Neither is it a solution for climate change as it often emits methane (more in tropical areas), destroys forests for the reservoir. Neither it is good for the environmental as it block rivers and inundates forests and agricultural land , and deny downstream enough water for wetlands to operate accordingly. Neither they protect us, from flood if they are not build to do so, or a way to keep water during drought.

Why they do not protect us from floods…. Well, if they are build just for that, yes, but you do not need a Mega dam for that, a mega dam is either for energy production, irrigation or water supply. To produce energy, you need to keep as much water as possible, and then when a big flood comes, there is no space to keep all the water in, same for irrigation, and to protect us from floods we do not need mega dams, small dams are the ideal, and system that can divert water when is too much, same for drought.

JA released in 2009 a study about renewable energy sources for Mozambique, another study that was attacked by the government participants in such a way that the author had difficulties to do his presentation without being constantly interrupted, simply because that study showed that we do not need Mphanda Nkuwa, and there are other ways forward to have energy for everyone with less impacts. The magic potion is not that difficult, we need to start with decentralized energy systems, clean energy, solar, wind, even mini to small hydro dams, a mix of energy sources, which must be affordable by all people.

We can do, and we should think more on solutions to tackle and minimize climate change impacts, instead to follow a path that put us where we are…. In a crises, can we be more smart and take decisions that are smarter, at least we live in a era that we have many options, and we know what mistakes where made, that we can avoid them.

So why build mega dams, to destroy rivers systems, communities livelihoods, increase climate impacts adding the economic risk , is really a mega dam worthwhile? It is not a solution for the climate crises we are hurtling towards. Climate change will affect rivers flow, and worsen extreme and intense floods and droughts that will put a risk on the economic benefit, so why ????

For whom and what. That’s the million dollar question. Because is not for us the people, is not a solution for our climate crises, is not for the environment…. who is it for? And what is it for?

Some info on dams, from the article of 12 dams that change the world from: https://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/227-3

Chixoy: the grave on the Rio Negro

Dam-affected communities have often suffered repression and human rights abuses. In 1982, more than 400 indigenous men, women and children were massacred to make way for the World Bank’s Chixoy Dam in Guatemala. In a historic breakthrough, the country’s government in 2014 signed a $154m reparations agreement with the affected communities.

Banqiao: the dam that washed away

When dams are not properly built or maintained, they can break. In the world’s biggest dam disaster, the failure of China’s Banqiao Dam killed an estimated 171,000 people in 1975. In more than 100 cases, scientists have also linked dam building to earthquakes. Strong evidence suggests that China’s Sichuan earthquake, which killed 80,000 people in 2008, may have been triggered by the Zipingpu Dam.

Yacyretá: the monument to corruption

Large dams are often pet projects of dictators. Lacking accountability leads to massive corruption and cost overruns. On average, large dams experience cost overruns of 96% and are not economic. The cost of Argentina’s Yacyretá Dam has mushroomed from $2.5bn to $15bn. A former president called Yacyretá “a monument to corruption”.

Merowe: when Chinese dam builders went global

In 2003, the Chinese government decided to fund the Merowe Dam in Sudan as its first big overseas hydropower project. The dam displaced more than 50,000 people and caused serious human rights violations. Chinese banks and companies are by now involved in some 330 dams in 74 countries, leading an unprecedented global dam building boom.

Glines Canyon: the dam that came down

Dams have serious environmental impacts, and their benefits dwindle as they age. Since the 1930s, the United States has removed more than 1,150 dams to restore river ecosystems and particularly fish habitats. In 2014, the 64 meters high Glines Canyon Dam on the Elwha River in the Pacific northwest was breached in the world’s biggest dam removal so far.

Patagonia: the dams that were never built

Recent years, solar and wind energy have seen their commercial breakthrough. These renewable energy sources are cleaner than coal or hydropower and can be built were people need electricity, even far away from the electric grid. In 2014, Chile cancelled five dams in the Patagonia region under strong public pressure and approved 700 megawatts of new solar and wind farms.

Kariba: the dam that ended poverty in Southern Africa (or did it?)

The Kariba Dam on the Zambezi was built in the 1950s to power Zambia’s copper belt, as the first large dam funded by the World Bank. Kariba was considered the symbol of a “brave new world”, in which controlling nature would bring quick economic development. Yet the 57,000 people who were displaced by the dam suffered famine and are still impoverished

References on WCD and more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Commission_on_Dams

https://energypedia.info/wiki/World_Commission_on_Dams_(WCD)_Report

http://www.unep.org/dams/documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=663

https://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/the-world-commission-on-dams

http://www.unep.org/dams/WCD/report/WCD_DAMS%20report.pdf

more https://www.internationalrivers.org/questions-and-answers-about-large-dams

Under Water

• As of this writing, Mar-a-lago has been shut down because of Hurricane Irma. Mar-a-lago is one of Donald Trump’s golf course properties where he has reportedly spent almost 1 month out of his 7 ½ month presidency (at huge expense to US taxpayers of course). Oh the irony! The man who once called climate change a Chinese hoax and who withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement – as we reported in our June 2017 newsletter – last year applied for a permit to build a sea wall to protect his property in Ireland.

  

                                                                                           Photo : climate central

  Reason mentioned for the permit: global warming and rising sea levels.

  2016 was the hottest year on record, breaking all kinds of records. 2017 has not been kind either. There has been a heat wave and drought in southern Europe. In Siberia the permafrost is melting, challenging its very name: ‘perma’frost. Nothing is permanent anymore. This is the new normal. There is no normal.

  This year, after fatal landslides in Sierra Leone, South Asia has been devastated by

  monsoon floods, which have killed more than 1200 people in India, Nepal and

  Bangladesh. This is 3 times the amount of Rohingya Muslims killed in the tragic ethnic massacre going on in Myanmar right now. All these meaningless deaths are a travesty, every life snuffed out, every person displaced is a tragedy. JA sends its solidarity across the oceans and mourns every life lost.

  These deaths have been politicized by being depoliticized. In the US, newscasters report on extreme weather events without mentioning climate change, because they don’t want to ‘politicize’ the issue. But the hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the flooding in SouthAsia, the continued drought in the Horn of Africa, are all highly political. ‘Don’t say we didn’t tell you this’, say climate scientists. Why is this a continued surprise? These impacts have been predicted by scientists for decades. Ignoring the causes of these disasters should, therefore, be a continued criminal act. “It leaves the public with the false impression that these are disasters without root causes, which also means that nothing could have been done to prevent them (and that nothing can be done now to prevent them from getting much worse in the future)”, says Naomi Klein in The Intercept.

  

  Scientists have known about these impacts for decades. So has Exxon. Just last month, researchers released a report which confirms that dirty energy corporation Exxon has known about climate impacts but lied about it for about 40 years.

  Meanwhile the fight against dirty energy is ongoing. Ireland’s movements got the

  government to completely ban fracking in July. South Korea’s government says they will give no more licences to coal power plants. August marks one year of victory since Australian movements made the Victoria state government ban fracking. Sri Lanka’s new energy plan has also ruled out coal. After campaigners sued to stop Indonesia’s Cirebon coal fired power plant, the courts struck down the environmental permit of the power plant. Friends of the Earth Togo just launched a campaign against off-shore oil exploitation. JA’s staff has visited the fishing communities in Togo which would be affected by the oil extraction.
  JA is also actively working to stop the climate crisis here at home. We know our country does not have historical responsibility for the climate crisis, but climate science shows we all have to stop emitting greenhouse gases. We must contribute to the solution, not the problem. Dirty energy is damaging lives and livelihoods, polluting the air, the water, the land and the people. It is breeding militarization and corruption and doesn’t bring true benefits for the people, certainly not for those affected by it. We have been challenging the coal mining in Tete province for over a decade. Last year we released a report about the economics of coal in Mozambique, which concluded that the number of people who had lost their farmland due to mining was almost three times more than the number of people employed by the mining industry, and that in 2015 coal mining accounted for only 1% of the government’s revenue. We have been challenging the proposed Mphanda Nkuwa mega-dam for 17 years, a dam which will devastate the river valley, the delta and its entire people. Now, another dirty energy menace has reared its head in our country: a big gas field has been discovered in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

  We predicted years ago that the gas rush would lead to devastation for local people,

  environment and climate. It come back to bite us.

  The only thing that will stop the climate crisis, here in Mozambique and across the world, is the power of the people.

  A luta continua.