A few months later, the US government accused Mmobuosi of fraud over his business dealings. Climate Home News visited Mchenga this month and found the new homes have cracks in the walls and floors, with residents scared they will collapse.

Emma Jeremia, a pregnant woman living in one house, said it would have been better to die in the storm than be killed by her house collapsing on her. Simon Mweyeli, who liaised with the Red Cross on behalf of Mchenga’s residents, said the homes can “fall anytime”.

This unsafe housing for cyclone survivors in Malawi, funded by a suspected fraudster, shows why governments need to get the new UN loss and damage fund up and running with decent resources and quality control, climate campaigners told Climate Home.

Cracks in the wall inside one of the homes in Mchenga, Malawi, pictured on May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)

International climate justice activists said the local testimonies show why funding for disaster victims should come from the governments that have predominantly caused the climate crisis rather than unaccountable benefactors – and recommended that affected people should be involved in designing and building their new homes.

After last year’s devastating cyclone – with the loss and damage fund not yet up and running – the cash-strapped Malawian government went looking for financial help around the world. According to national media, ex-president Bakili Muluzi recruited Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi.

The day after promising to build the homes – and the same day he was accused by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research of operating a scam company – Mmobuosi received a Malawian diplomatic passport, which is usually reserved for senior politicians, national media reported.

“Such instances highlight why we need a loss and damage fund that empowers affected communities to lead recovery and reconstruction efforts, and not allow politicians or corporations to further their own interests,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist who has long advocated for the fund.

In 2022, governments finally agreed at the COP27 climate talks to set up such a fund to channel money from wealthy nations to people in developing countries who have been harmed by climate change. The fund’s board hopes it can start distributing money next year.

Cyclone Freddy strikes

In March last year, Cyclone Freddy travelled from the west coast of Australia across the Indian Ocean over Madagascar and into southern Africa, where it caused floods and mudslides that killed more than 1,000 people in Malawi.

The village of Mchenga, in Malawi’s southern Phalombe district, was among the worst-hit. Its 72-year-old headman Laften Nangazi told Climate Home that 80 people died there in a single day.

He said he saw men, women and children being swept away in despair. “I cried when I saw children dying,” he said, “I saw about 40 people in a tree, and they were there for three days waiting for the water levels to go down.”

When the waters eventually receded, 176 of the village’s families were left homeless – a problem repeated across the country’s south.

Hendry Keinga reacts after he lost a family member during the Mtauchira village mudslide in the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy in Blantyre, Malawi, March 16, 2023. (REUTERS/Esa Alexander)

Looking for funds

Malawi is the world’s tenth poorest country, so government money to rebuild housing was scarce. The international fund for loss and damage, meant to address disasters like this, had just been agreed at COP27 but was not yet up and running.

President Lazarus Chakwera invited his three living predecessors for a meeting. Two of them – Bakili Muluzi and Joyce Banda – showed up and were made “Goodwill Ambassadors of Tropical Cyclone Freddy”, national media reported.

Muluzi’s son Atupele told Climate Home that his father and Banda tried to access finance “to support the very real costs to the country for housing, social infrastructure, agriculture and industry as we try to rebuild in a resilient manner”.

“Of course, the global economy and international politics means that this is a challenging task in the midst of the chaos, conflict and climate impact everywhere in the world,” he added.

To meet this challenge, Bakili Muluzi turned to Mmobuosi, a Nigerian businessman and founder of mobile banking company Tingo Group, who was then in the news for trying to take over English football club Sheffield United.

Twitter

Controversial Nigerian tech entrepreneur Dozy Mmobuosi recently visited the country to participate in the launch of a Cyclone Freddy relief project in Phalombe, an event supported by former Presidents Bakili Muluzi and Joyce Banda. pic.twitter.com/w1WlzANAKM

— Platform for Investigative Journalism – Malawi (@PlatformMalawi) June 15, 2023

On June 6, Mmobuosi, Muluzi and Banda travelled to Mchenga to launch construction work on new houses, posing with a foundation stone bearing their names. On Facebook, Banda said the houses “will be made possible because of a generous contribution” from Mmobuosi, who she called “a distinguished son of Africa” and “good friend” of Muluzi.

The next day, according to the Platform for Investigative Journalism, Mmobuosi met with Muluzi and President Chakwera at the president’s home. The Nigerian was unusually quickly granted a diplomatic passport, usually reserved for top Malawian politicians and their spouses.

“Exceptionally obvious scam”

But on the same day Mmobusi was in Mchenga, Hindenburg Research, which specialises in “forensic financial research”, accused his Tingo Group – which says it provides mobile banking to farmers – of being “an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials”.

Hindenburg was short-selling Tingo Group shares, so it stood to profit if the share price of the firm – listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US – went down.

Hindenburg accused Mmobuosi of inventing much of his backstory, of settling out of court with Nigerian authorities over alleged bad cheques in 2017, of photo-shopping Tingo logos onto planes to claim the company had an airline, and generally exaggerating the company’s assets.

While Muluzi stood by him, in December 2023 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sided with Hindenburg. They accused Mmobuosi of a “staggering” fraud against Tingo’s investors.

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The SEC’s 72-page complaint included images of what it said was a real and an edited Tingo bank statement. The edited one had several zeros added to the balance.

US authorities charged Mmobuosi with security fraud and froze his assets. His whereabouts are reportedly unknown. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

On October 6 – after Hindenburg’s complaint but before the SEC’s – Muluzi and Mmobuosi went back to Mchenga village in Malawi to hand over the first batch of 17 houses.

Muluzi thanked Mmobuosi for the funding and said he had “committed to buy beds, mattresses and furniture for the households and also to bring solar electricity to the area”. In December, another 28 houses were handed over.

@MalawiRedCross has today handed over 45 houses to beneficiaries of T/A Phweremwe in Phalombe, that have been constructed with funding from The Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation through Goodwill Ambassador on TC Freddy Former President Dr Bakili Muluzi. pic.twitter.com/hVhOYdScjS

— Malawi Red Cross Society (@MalawiRedCross) December 19, 2023

Cracks and missing crockery

But five months on, when Climate Home visited the village, residents complained the homes were too few, dangerous and small, adding they had not yet received the promised furniture or solar power.

Jeremia said her father was given one of the houses but she sleeps in it instead. “He and my mother and my other siblings are living in a rented house. They cannot stay in a house that is threatening their lives. After all, it’s also a very small house to accommodate all of us,” she said.

Mweyeli, the chair of the village civil protection committee, said most new homes are “showing cracks – a sign that these houses are of sub-standard”. He said the first 17 homes were built with 45 bags of cement, but the later 28 were built with just 28 bags, making them weak and liable to fall down.

He demonstrated how the floors were made of sand covered by plastic with a “thin layer of cement which is now showing cracks all over”.

Simon Mweyeli shows cracks in the floor of one of the houses, which he said were sand covered by plastic and a thin cement layer

Charles Macheso, who climbed a mango tree to save himself from the cyclone but lost all his possessions, said village coordinators told the Malawi Red Cross that more cement was needed. But, he said, the Red Cross officers “were so defensive”. Mweyeli said he called the Red Cross to report the cracks and the aid organisation came to take pictures.

Charles Macheso in Mchenga village on May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)

Asked about these houses, the Malawi Red Cross’s communications specialist in the capital Lilongwe, Felix Washon, initially told Climate Home to go see them, and then hung up the phone without answering further questions.

“Not aware”

After a two-day journey from Lilongwe to the village, Climate Home contacted Washon again and was told by email that “we are not aware of any report about cracking of houses in Phalombe [the district that covers Mchenga]”.

Washon later said the Red Cross had a contract to build the homes with Muluzi rather than Mmobuosi. “We never received any money from Dozy [Mmobuosi] – direct from Dozy,” he said by phone. “Malawi Red Cross Society has no other links or contracts with Dozy,” he added.

Climate Home News emailed the contact address listed on the Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation’s website, but the email bounced.

Mmobuosi told Arise News in February that he was “taken aback” and “shocked” by the SEC’s allegations about Tingo Group. He said he had not run Tingo directly for seven years, adding that his lawyers were “on top of” responding to the SEC charges and that Tingo was conducting its own internal investigation. Mmobuosi is not currently listed as a member of the company’s board of directors.

In Mchenga, village headman Nangazi told Climate Home that 131 families are still without a home and called on national organisations like the Catholic Development Commission – that has provided iron sheets – to help build more accommodation.

Ida Mayilosi, 75, is one of those who missed out. “I wished I had also been assisted,” she said. “This house I am living in was built by some relatives but it took time.”

Ida Mayilosi, whose house was destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, sits in Mchenga village, May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)

Mattias Söderberg, climate lead for Danish charity DanChurchAid, which is currently building homes in Nepal after landslides there, said support for communities to rebuild after extreme weather that causes loss and damage “should be done so that they are more secure and robust to face the next climate-related disaster”.  “Investments which are not adapted risk being lost,” he added.

Singh – who fought to solve similar problems in India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands following the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2006 – said he had seen “firsthand how involving communities not only places them in the driving seat but also ensures accountability”.

(Reporting from Raphael Mweninguwe in Mchenga and Joe Lo in London; editing by Sebastian Rodriguez and Megan Rowling)

The post In Malawi, dubious cyclone aid highlights need for loss and damage fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

For too long, Africa has supplied the raw materials which drive development abroad, while Africans remain locked in endless cycles of poverty at home.  

This has been happening even before Western European colonial powers carved up the African continent in the 19th century’s “scramble for Africa”, exporting rubber, diamonds, gold, ivory, palm oil and other wealth, to process and transform it into saleable commodities. 

Today, this damaging pattern remains intact, as wealth continues to haemorrhage from Africa in this way. 

To take just one graphic example: 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa – or 53% of the region’s population — still don’t have access to electricity on a continent that possesses all the minerals needed to build its own energy infrastructure.  

Now a new “scramble for Africa” has begun. This time, it is for the African minerals that will be crucial for the world to have any chance of halting climate chaos.  

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The African continent holds vast quantities of the transition minerals – such as cobalt, lithium and nickel – which are used to help produce, transport, store and use electricity generated from cleaner sources such as wind and sun – and which are a prerequisite for a clean energy future.  

Tanzania, for instance, possesses huge reserves of nickel which is a key ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles. 

As the world rushes to secure these precious materials, Africans must break with the past.  

The wealth these minerals generate must spur African development, giving our citizens the roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and other basic services so many of them desperately need. 

“New” partnerships? 

Many of Africa’s historic exploiters are among the Western powers which are now rushing to secure transition minerals. 

The US-led “Mineral Security Partnership,” which includes the European Union and other most powerful economies from the OECD block, is positioning itself in Africa’s resource-rich countries.  

Concurrently, the EU is supposedly redesigning its ties with Africa and other mineral-rich nations through “Strategic Partnerships“.  

All those initiatives are committed to “bring economic benefits to local communities”, allowing partner countries to “move up the value chain” – but are effectively enveloping the continent from multiple angles in a concerted push for resources. 

And it is no secret that mineral exports are ruled by international trade policies set up, influenced and dominated by Western powers, allowing them to access African resources at a good price. 

Zimbabwe looks to China to secure a place in the EV battery supply chain

In this realm, it remains an open question whether these partnerships will pave the way for genuine development, or – as so often in the past – merely serve foreign interests.  

In other words, will they simply be a means of continuing business as usual – keeping Africa trapped in ‘extractivism’ – or offer Africa a path to self-determination? 

Challenging the status quo 

The OECD Forum on Responsible Minerals Supply Chains, taking place this week in Paris, is a crucial opportunity for African leaders to assert their vision for a new era of mineral resource management.  

This event remains a forum dominated by consumer regions’ representatives and priorities, but we Africans need to make ourselves heard.  

We cannot wait any longer. African leaders must challenge the status quo and advocate for deals and trade policies that empower producer nations. 

They can also insist that mining companies respect the rights of the Indigenous and local communities most impacted by mining – peoples whose way of life protects priceless ecosystems that are crucial for preventing climate change, biodiversity loss and the risk of future pandemics emerging from deforested landscapes.  

Calls for responsible mining fail to stem rights abuses linked to transition minerals

Free trade rules favour already industrialised regions. One of the ways to counter this is by creating a web of preferential trade agreements among African countries. This would allow them to access their neighbours’ transition minerals at lower prices, to help them build their own clean energy technologies.  

Regional collaboration is the key to ensuring that Africa gains its rightful place in the new power map drawn by the energy transition. The African Union, the Southern African Development Community and other regional blocs could play a pivotal role in this process, promoting intra-regional trade and economic cohesion. 

African civil society works across borders to ensure that deals signed by African governments with consumer regions reflect the continent’s collective interests. But we can’t do this alone. 

We need to unite with our leaders around a just vision for our minerals. Only then can the continent truly benefit from them, turning the page on a history of exploitation and underdevelopment.  

The post Africa must reap the benefits of its energy transition minerals  appeared first on Climate Home News.

But the money pledged still falls short of the $4 billion a year needed for the rest of this decade to wean poor African households off traditional dirty fuels including charcoal, kerosene and firewood, while climate campaigners criticised efforts to switch them to fossil gas.

Countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and India have made progress in recent years, in line with a global goal to provide clean cooking for all by 2030. Yet four in five Africans still use highly polluting cooking methods – around half of the 2.3 billion people who lack clean options worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told the summit his organisation’s aim of making 2024 “a turning point” for clean cooking was being realised.

“It’s now or never,” he said, adding that the IEA will track the commitments made in Paris and share the results with the international community in a year’s time. “We will follow it as if it is our own money,” he emphasised.

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Separately, the African Development Bank (AfDB) confirmed an earlier pledge, first made at the COP28 climate summit last year, to mobilise around $2 billion for clean cooking over the next 10 years, earmarking 20 percent of its energy finance for that purpose.

Speaking in Paris, AfDB president, Akinwumi A. Adesina, said his own eyesight had been damaged by smoke from cooking fires during his childhood in Nigeria, while a friend and members of her family had died in an accident after she was sold petrol instead of kerosene as cooking fuel.

“Why do we let things like that happen?” Adesina asked, adding that enabling clean cooking is a matter of “human dignity, fairness and justice for women”. “It is about life itself,” he said.

Experts have long pointed to the health damage to women and children from carbon monoxide and black soot emitted by cooking over open fires or with basic stoves. Dirty cooking contributes to 3.7 million premature deaths annually, according to the IEA, with women and children most at risk from respiratory and cardiovascular ailments linked to indoor air pollution.

Ahead of the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa this week in Paris, some climate and gender activists pointed to the small number of African women represented at the gathering – who they said accounted for less than a fifth of registered participants.

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Janet Milongo, coordinator of renewable energy for Climate Action Network International, said the event was biased “towards the continuation of the colonial, patriarchal representation of the continent”.

Speeches were made largely by male leaders of governments and companies, with the notable exception of Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and Damilola Ogunbiyi, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All.

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (left) with the presidents of Sierra Leone, Tanzania and  Togo, the prime minister of Norway; H.E. Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice President of the European Green Deal and Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group at the Clean Cooking Summit for Africa in Paris, May 14, 2024 (Photo: International Energy Agency)

Clean cooking ‘opportunity’ in NDCs

Ogunbiyi, who is Nigerian and has worked on clean energy policy for the government, said her country had made a big effort on solar electrification but had forgotten about clean cooking.

“We can’t make that mistake again,” she said, calling for clean cooking to be a key part of African governments’ investment plans for their energy transition.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged more governments to seize the opportunity to include measures to boost clean cooking in the next updates to their national climate action plans (NDCs) due by early next year.

As of December last year, only 60 NDCs included one or more measures that explicitly target clean cooking, such as Nepal’s goal to ensure that by 2030 half of households use electric stoves as their main mode of cooking and Rwanda promising to disseminate modern efficient cookstoves to 80% of its rural population and 50% of people in cities by that date.

Stiell noted that planet-heating emissions from dirty cooking methods are “significant”, amounting to about 2% of the global total – the equivalent of emissions from the aviation and shipping sectors combined.

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He said the world has the technology to shift people onto modern, cleaner sources of energy and cut emissions in the process, calling it “low-hanging fruit”.

Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Clean Cooking Alliance, a global partnership of organisations working on the issue, said it was important to raise awareness not just about the scale of the problem – but to ensure people understand it is an issue that can be solved.

“The technologies exist – they are out there, there are fantastic companies providing these fuels and solutions and services to these customers that actually can be deployed immediately… and reach the populations in Africa,” she told Climate Home after the summit.

LPG conundrum

On stage in Paris, companies ranging from fossil fuel giants such as Total and Shell to smaller manufacturers of cookstoves said they would expand their efforts to reach new customers with more efficient stoves running on modern energy, including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), bioethanol and electricity.

While there is widespread consensus over ending the use of firewood and charcoal – which contribute to deforestation – there is less agreement over which fuels should replace them.

Efforts to build new distribution networks for LPG – a form of fossil fuel gas – are particularly controversial. At the summit on Tuesday, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said his company wants to increase its 40 million African LPG customers to 100 million and will invest more to boost its LPG production capacity in East Africa.

Pouyanné said there is a need to make LPG cooking affordable – noting that the $30 upfront investment required for a stove and gas canister is too high for most people – which could be done through “pay as you cook” loans.

Some international development agencies that work on the ground to help poor households access clean cooking – including Practical Action – support the use of LPG as a “transitional step” towards clean cooking where options like electricity or ethanol are not available.

“Our primary objective is to ensure people, especially women and children, have access to the best possible solutions which don’t compromise their health and that in the long term aren’t contributing to the worsening climate crisis,” said Practical Action CEO Sarah Roberts.

In the IEA’s “least-cost, realistic scenario” to reach universal clean cooking this decade, LPG remains the primary solution, representing nearly half of households gaining access, while electric cooking is the main option for just one in eight homes.

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The IEA’s analysis shows that this strategy, centred on LPG, would drive up emissions by 0.1 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2030. But that would be more than offset by reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from switching away from firewood, charcoal and inefficient stoves, resulting in a net reduction of 1.5Gt of CO2 equivalent by 2030.

Net greenhouse gas emissions annual savings from clean cooking access in the IEA Access for All scenario by 2030 (in Mt CO2-eq) (Source: IEA)

Red = Combustion; Orange = Avoided combustion; Yellow = Unsustainable harvesting; Green = Net savings          

At the summit, Togo’s president Faure Gnassingbé described LPG as “really the way forward” for clean cooking, and said more production capacity was needed in Africa. He added that ESG investors – which normally apply green and ethical standards – should adjust their environmental criteria so they can back LPG cooking projects despite it being a fossil fuel.

“We should be clear-headed and not open up to sterile debates on this issue,” Gnassingbé told the summit.

Some climate justice activists disagreed, criticising high-level backing for fossil gas as a clean cooking solution.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based energy and climate think-tank, said on social media platform X that the need for clean cooking alternatives “is used by many African politicians as an excuse for building gas infrastructure” which is intended to develop an export industry and never reaches poorer households.

Here’s my response to yesterday’s summit on Clean Cooking in Africa & the declaration issued by #IEA.

“This declaration is a lazy & misguided statement which seems to rely on the private sector to use gas as a solution to this problem.

However, there’s no evidence that will…

— Mohamed Adow (@mohadow) May 15, 2024

He said the money raised at the summit should be channelled instead into high-efficiency, low-cost electric cookers for African women, which could be powered by renewable energy.

Carbon finance principles

Another controversial way of promoting clean cooking, backed by the IEA-hosted summit, is by developing and selling carbon credits for the emissions savings from new technologies and fuels.

The IEA said that around 15% of the total amount pledged in Paris would come via carbon finance, with the proceeds from selling offsets helping subsidise customers’ access to clean cooking.

But Climate Home found in an investigation last year that the methodologies used to calculate emissions reductions from more efficient cookstoves in India had overstated their greenhouse gas savings.

To counter such problems, the Clean Cooking Alliance announced a new set of “Principles for Responsible Carbon Finance in Clean Cooking” in Paris, backed by 100 organisations working in the space.

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The voluntary principles, which aim to build confidence in carbon markets for clean cooking, say project claims should be evidence-based, case-specific and substantiated, and their benefits should be transparent. The alliance is also working with the UN climate secretariat on a new methodology for clean cooking carbon credits which it hopes will be ready this year.

Van der Lans said the goal was to strengthen the quality and integrity of clean-cooking carbon credits in line with the latest science, to achieve a higher, fairer price that fully reflects the work being done to protect forests by moving away from charcoal and firewood.

“Everybody within the clean cooking ecosystem is signing up to these principles,” she noted – from banks to carbon credit verification agencies and companies selling the technology.

“That is a good signal that we’re doing the right things and we’re moving this market in the right direction,” she added.

(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Joe Lo)

The post Paris summit unlocks cash for clean cooking in Africa, side-stepping concerns over gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

Just a few kilometres further south, however, local fishermen in Mbour, the country’s second-largest fishing port, are struggling. The beaches where they keep their boats are being progressively eaten away by rising seas that also threaten their homes.

The stark contrast between the neighbouring coastal areas highlights how global funding for climate projects – largely taxpayers’ money from rich countries – often fails to help those shouldering the burden of warming impacts, especially when it is being used to mobilise more private investment for green aims.

“They prioritise Saly because the hotels are wealthy,” said Saliou Diouf, a retired fisherman who lost his house in Mbour to encroaching waves. “The World Bank should help the most vulnerable.” 

Map showing the location of the neighbouring communities of Saly and Mbour on Senegal’s coast (Graphic: Fanis Kollias)

Le Lamantin is one of a dozen upscale hotels in sub-Saharan Africa acquired by Mauritius-based Kasada Hospitality Fund LP – whose investors are Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and multinational hotel giant Accor – which it is revamping in accordance with EDGE, a green building certification created by the World Bank.

Kasada was granted over $190 million in guarantees by the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and loans of up to $160 million by its private-sector lender, the International Finance Corporation, to help it snap up hotels across Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Namibia and Senegal, and spruce them up as Accor brands like Mövenpick.

The Mövenpick Resort Lamantin Saly, where a standard hotel room costs about £220 a night (Photo: Jack Thompson)

MIGA, the little-known insurance arm of the World Bank Group, has counted its backing for the hotels as part of its climate efforts for the past three years, according to annual sustainability reports.

The five-star resort in the West African nation of Senegal, where rooms cost at least £220 a night ($270), is being refurbished to consume at least 20% less energy and water than other comparable buildings by its owner Kasada, which expects it to obtain EDGE certification this year.

Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice for ActionAid International, told Climate Home it is “shocking that what little funds there are for climate action are benefiting luxury hotels”.

 

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Una publicación compartida de Mövenpick Resort Lamantin Saly (@movenpicklamantinsaly)

“Climate finance must be used to help those most vulnerable – not to help the world’s wealthiest add a climate hashtag to their Instagram posts by the pool,” she said.

MIGA told Climate Home its support for Kasada is primarily aimed at developing Senegal’s tourism sector and creating jobs, adding that refurbishing hotels can also have beneficial climate impacts and play an important role in decarbonising the hospitality industry.

Mbour, just a few miles from the pristine beaches of Saly, is the second-largest fishing hub in Senegal with 11,000 fishers. (Photo: Jack Thompson)

‘The money is missing’

In nearby Mbour, however, the fishing community feels left behind.

“I was born here, I grew up here – when I was a child, the sea only came up to the last pole,” Diouf told Climate Home, pointing to the remnants of a Portuguese-built pontoon used to moor colonial ships in the 1800s. 

In just one generation, he said, the sea has gobbled up more than 100 metres of beach in Mbour, forcing 30 families to abandon their houses and threatening hundreds more. A quarter of the Senegalese coastline – home to 60% of the population – is at high risk of erosion.

Mbour’s fast-disappearing shore is a crisis for its 11,000 fishers as big swells destroy their boats, crammed into the remaining patch of sand.

But in Saly, it’s a different story. Here, between 2017 and 2022, under a separate project, the World Bank invested $74 million in beach protection, building 19 stone walls, groynes and breakwaters to reclaim 8-9 kilometres of hotel-lined beachfront, popular with tourists.

The World Bank Group said the project helped preserve around 15,000 direct and indirect jobs by saving tourism infrastructure, while also protecting two fishing villages in Saly.

Satellite data shows the changing coastline in Saly (north), where protective infrastructure was developed, and Mbour (south), which has none. (Photo: Modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2024]/Sentinel Hub)

The World Bank Group (WBG) said its units work together to avoid trade-offs. “It’s not to either support hotels and the tourism sector as a driver of development, or to enhance the resilience of local communities – the WBG does both,” it said in a written response to Climate Home.

But fishermen in Mbour – which was outside the scope of the Saly coastal protection infrastructure project – are not benefiting from that approach, and even say the works in Saly have exacerbated erosion in their area. The Mbour artisanal fisheries council has devised a climate adaptation strategy to address the problem. 

One of its coordinators, Moustapha Senghor, said seawalls and breakwaters are needed, but there are no funds for what would amount to “a colossal investment”. “We know exactly what we need to do, but the money is missing,” he said.

Sea level rise is threatening beach-side homes and swallowing coconut trees that protect the coastline in Mbour, Senegal. (Photo: Jack Thompson)

Private-sector trillions

Governments and climate justice activists are putting pressure on the World Bank to significantly step up its role in funding climate projects, especially to help the most vulnerable countries and communities. 

For the past three years, a group of countries led by Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley has called for reforms so that the bank can better address climate change.

At the same time, wealthy nations have been reluctant to inject more capital into its coffers, while attempts at tinkering with the balance sheet to squeeze out more climate cash only go so far. 

For World Bank Group President Ajay Banga, the real solution lies in greater private-sector involvement, using scarce public money as a lever to help mobilise huge dollar sums for climate and development goals this decade.

“We know that governments and multilateral institutions and philanthropies all working together will still fall short of providing the trillions that we will require annually for climate, for fragility, for inequality in the world. We therefore need the private sector,” Banga told media ahead of this week’s annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

MIGA’s guarantees can be a key driver of climate investments in developing countries. (Graphic: Fanis Kollias)

Following suggestions from a group of CEOs convened by Banga, the World Bank Group announced in February a major overhaul of its guarantee business to enable “improved access and faster execution”. The goal is to triple issuances, including those from MIGA, to $20 billion by 2030, with a significant proportion of that expected to support green projects.

MIGA – as a provider of guarantees aimed at encouraging private capital into developing countries – may not be the obvious choice to help low-income communities like Mbour’s fishers. 

But, in its 2023 sustainability report, the agency wrote: “because the poorest are the most vulnerable to climate change, MIGA is working to mobilize more private finance to scale up climate adaptation, resilience and preparedness”.

Last year, less than one percent of MIGA’s total guarantees directly supported climate adaptation measures, according to its annual report.  

The guarantees generally act as a form of political risk insurance, making an investment less risky and giving companies access to cheaper loans as a result.

MIGA’s 2023 sustainability report showcases the Kasada-owned hotels as an example of its efforts to “rapidly ramp up” private capital for climate action, with the agency providing its highest volume of climate finance last year.

Struggle to fund adaptation

But some experts argue the World Bank Group should be targeting its efforts more closely on communities who are struggling to survive as global warming exacerbates extreme weather and rising seas. 

Vijaya Ramachandran, a director at the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based environmental research centre, said projects like the Kasada-backed hotels are “not where the dollars are best spent from a climate perspective”.

Ramachandran, a former World Bank economist, co-authored a study last year analysing the climate portfolio of the bank’s public-sector lending arms, which exclude MIGA. It found a lack of clarity over what constitutes a climate project and showed that hundreds of projects had been tagged as climate finance despite having little to do with emissions-reduction efforts or adaptation.

Ramachandran told Climate Home that, in the case of MIGA’s backing for the African hotels, Kasada “should just be doing the energy saving itself as part of its own efforts to address climate change”. 

Holidaymakers enjoy a spacious, ocean-side pool at the five-star Le Lamantin resort in Saly, Senegal. (Photo: Jack Thompson)

Olivier Granet and David Damiba, managing partners of Kasada Capital Management, told Climate Home the hotel investment fund had always planned to be “a leader in energy and water efficiency in its properties”. 

But, they added, the financial and technical support of MIGA and the IFC had helped them implement their strategy “further and more easily”, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight Kasada-owned hotels have already been certified under EDGE and the rest are expected to achieve the standard this year, they noted.

Ramachandran said making hotels energy-efficient is a good thing – “but from a public finance perspective, for poorer African countries the focus should be on adaptation and making them more resilient”.

Developing countries need an estimated $387 billion a year to carry out their current adaptation plans, but in 2021 they received only $24.6 billion in international adaptation finance, according to the latest figures published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

MIGA to miss climate target?

Once regarded by campaigners as the “World Bank’s dirtiest wing” for its support of fossil fuels, MIGA has come under mounting pressure to shift its subsidies in a greener direction, in line with broader institutional goals.

In response, the agency has committed to throw more of its financial weight behind projects that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions or alleviate the impacts of climate change. 

In 2020, it revealed a plan to dedicate at least 35% of its guarantees to climate projects on average from fiscal year 2021 through 2025, embracing a target set by the wider World Bank Group. 

MIGA conceded at the time this would be “a challenge” – and it now looks likely to fall short of the goal. In 2023, climate finance represented 28% of its guaranteed investments.

According to the agency’s 2023 sustainability report, 31 out of 40 projects it supported with guarantees last year had a climate mitigation or adaptation component, but it did not disclose what percentage of each was counted as climate finance.

Meanwhile, over the last three years, MIGA has backed three gas-fired power plants in Mozambique and Bangladesh, while it is also planning to support an additional one in Togo. 

In monetary terms, MIGA’s annual provision of climate guarantees has risen from just over $1 billion in 2019 to $1.5 billion in 2023, pushing up the total size of its climate portfolio to $8.4 billion. But the headline numbers only paint a partial picture, clouded by a lack of transparency in the data.

MIGA’s portfolio of climate investments has grown in the past six years. (Photo: MIGA Climate Change)

In response to Climate Home’s request for a full list of MIGA’s climate projects, the agency said it could not disclose the information for confidentiality reasons. 

“Our clients are private-sector investors or financiers, and we do not have agreement to release disaggregated information about their investments and financing,” a MIGA spokesperson said.

The only clues about the make-up of MIGA’s climate portfolio come in its glossy annual sustainability reports, which highlight a handful of initiatives. 

Climate Home News reviewed these reports from the last three available years – 2021, 2022 and 2023 – and tracked highlighted projects, which are framed as positive examples of climate finance. 

Motorways and elite universities 

They show that support for renewable energy made up a quarter of MIGA’s climate guarantees in 2023. 

But its track record of climate investments raises questions about the agency’s criteria for designating projects as climate finance and how it allocates those resources to help people most in need, experts said. 

Karen Mathiasen, a former director of the multilateral development bank office in the US Treasury, said MIGA should not be using its resources to expand investment in things like luxury hotels and then counting them as climate finance. 

“There is a real problem in the World Bank Group with greenwashing,” added Mathiasen, who is now a project director with the Center for Global Development.

World Bank approves green reforms, appeals for more money

MIGA said it calculates the climate co-benefits from its projects using the same methodologies as other multilateral development banks, and applies them consistently according to a “rigorous internal consultation and review process”. 

Large infrastructure projects feature heavily in MIGA’s climate portfolio. 

For example, a group of international banks, including JP Morgan, Banco Santander and Credit Agricole, have received a total of €1.4 billion in guarantees to bankroll the construction of a new motorway in Serbia, in an area prone to severe flooding. 

The 112-km dual-carriageway, in the West Morava river valley, is implementing measures to reduce flood risk, including river regulation – and so was counted as climate finance.  

In 2022, MIGA’s largest climate guarantee – worth €570 million ($615 million) – helped finance the construction of a new campus in Morocco’s capital Rabat for the Mohammed VI Polytechnic, a private university owned by mining and fertiliser company OCP Group and frequented by the country’s elite.

According to MIGA, the project would seek to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green-building certification “for key facilities”, and include hydraulic structures to enhance the climate resilience of the campus.

Similarly, support for a new hospital in Gaziantep, Turkey, was tagged as 100% climate finance because it features energy efficiency measures and flood drainage works. 

In 2023, just under half of MIGA’s climate guarantees went towards “greening” the financial sector in mainly middle-income countries like Argentina, Colombia, Hungary, Algeria and Botswana. 

These guarantees are intended to help local banks free up more capital and boost loans to climate projects, although in some cases they are only expected to do so on a “best effort basis” involving no strict obligation, according to MIGA’s annual reports.

MIGA said this clause is included for regulatory reasons and requires banks to “take all necessary actions to provide climate loan commitments” as far as is “commercially reasonable”.

UN climate chief calls for “quantum leap in climate finance”

Call for clarity 

Ramachandran of the Breakthrough Institute said MIGA should demonstrate the outcomes of its climate finance projects “in terms of reduced emissions or of improved resilience, (and) what the overarching strategy is to make sure the money is best spent”. 

“Instead the focus is simply on dollar amounts,” she added – a criticism rejected by the World Bank Group. 

MIGA said it supports projects in all sectors that contribute to development and enables the inclusion of emissions-cutting and climate adaptation measures in their design and operation. 

Former U.S. official Mathiasen believes MIGA could be a powerful engine to mobilise more private money for climate action, but said it needs a cultural change to focus more on results rather than numerical targets which give staff an incentive to “pump up the numbers”. 

“A little bit of an add-on – that is not a climate project. There needs to be clear, transparent criteria of what constitutes a climate project,” she said. 

(Reporting by Jack Thompson in Senegal and Matteo Civillini in London; additional reporting by Sebastian Rodriguez; editing by Megan Rowling, Sebastian Rodriguez and Joe Lo; graphics by Fanis Kollias)

This article was amended on April 17 to clarify that the Qatar Investment Authority and Accor are investors in the Kasada Hospitality Fund. It is run by Kasada Capital Management.

The post World Bank climate funding greens African hotels while fishermen sink appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Societe Conservation Forestiere (SCF) was set up in December 2022 and is co-owned by two adult children of the DRC’s defence minister Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was accused of war crimes and found guilty of bribing witnesses. This is according to previously unreported company documents seen by Climate Home.

The documents show its stated goal is to sell carbon credits and it has applied to the provincial government for a “forest conservation concession” in the DRC province of Sud-Ubangi but it has not made progress on the ground and little else is known about it.

Anti-corruption activists raised concerns that Bemba could use his political power over the environment minister Eve Bazaiba, as her party leader, to benefit the company. Human rights activists criticised the war crimes committed by Bemba’s forces across Central Africa.

“A la carte menu”: Saudi minister claims Cop28 fossil fuel agreement is only optional

Carbon Market Watch researcher Jonathan Crook said the revelations raised “red flags” over whether the company is free from conflicts of interest and has the experience to conduct forest conservation projects that get informed consent from local peoples.

He added: “It is very concerning to hear of potentially significant conflicts of interest and serious allegations of human and land right abuses reported about individuals linked to this company”.

Bemba was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity but, after a 10-year trial at the International Criminal Court, he was eventually acquitted on appeal. He was found guilty of bribing witnesses in the case.

Ban on business

The documents show SCF’s shares are owned equally by Bemba’s 30-year old son Jean-Emmanuel Teixera and 29-year old daughter Magalie Tema Teixera. They are listed under their mother’s last name and as Portugese citizens.

The SCF’s constiution

Article 97 of the DRC’s constitution bans government ministers from carrying out “any professional activity”.

Jimmy Kande is an anti-corruption activist from the DRC. He told Climate Home that the country’s politicians often put projects in the names of their children.

Kande told Climate Home that this company may find it easy to get the support of the environment minister because she “depends on Jean-Pierre Bemba”.

Neither child has any track record of forest conservation and both remain close to their father. Magalie goes by Magalie Bemba on social media and re-posts her father’s messages praising his militia turned political party – the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC).

Jean-Emmanuel’s recent wedding was attended by his father, the president of the DRC Felix Tshisekedi and Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of the Ivory Coast who Jean-Pierre Bemba met whilst they were both on trial for alleged war crimes in The Hague.

A power player

Jean-Pierre Bemba was born into extreme wealth and power. His father was a minister under the DRC’s long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

When the DRC descended into wars which would end Mobutu’s rule, Bemba set up the MLC as a rebel militia and took control of almost a third of the country.

South African ministry uses opaque modelling to argue for weakening climate ambition

Human rights groups have accused them of raping and massacring and indigenous pygmy people during these wars.

In 2003, the warring factions signed a peace agreement which made Bemba one of five vice-presidents in the transitional government.

Three years later, Bemba was the main challenger to Joseph Kabila in presidential elections. The electoral commission declared Kabila the winner.

War crimes

The next year, on a trip to Belgium, Bemba was arrested on the orders of the International Criminal Court.

Their arrest warrant says he was suspected of perpetrating crimes against humanity and war crimes, particularly allowing his MLC troops to rape, murder and pillage during a conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR). In 2002, MLC fighters interceded to suppress a coup attempt against CAR president Ange-Félix Patassé.

Witnesseses told the court that civilians were murdered when they tried to stop their property being stolen. The thefts were “not justified by military necessity”, the ICC ruled.

In 2016, three different ICC judges found Bemba guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, namely the murder, rape and pillage committed by MLC fighters.

The three judges which declared Bemba guilty in 2016 (Photos: International Criminal Court)

While human rights groups celebrated the decision, then-MLC legislator Bazaiba called it “selective justice”. Bemba immeditately appealed. Two years later, a panel of five brand new judges narrowly reversed the decision, arguing the previous judges failed to properly prove that Bemba had the power to stop the war crimes.

The ruling was enough to free Bemba from prison in time for him to return to the DRC and try to run for president in the 2018 elections.

But the electoral authorities banned him from running because, while the ICC failed to convict him for war crimes and crimes against humanity, it did find him guilty of bribing witnesses in the trial.

The elections were won by Felix Tshisekedi, who sought to bring rivals from the MLC into his coalition.

He appointed the MLC’s secretary general Eve Baziaba as environment minister in April 2021 and Bemba as defence minister in March 2023.

The MLC’s support helped Tshisekedi win a second term in office last month and he is likely to keep both Bemba and Bazaiba as ministers.

Carbon offsets supporter

Since her appointment as environment minister, Bazaiba has been a vocal supporter of carbon offsets at Cop climate talks.

At Cop28, UN records show she was accompanied by her own daughter Nono Manganza and by Jean-Pierre Bemba’s eldest daughter Cynthia Bemba-Gombo.

At the conference, she stood alongside indigenous people from around the world and argued: “The world asks us – Amazonia, Congo Basin, Mekong basin – to preserve our forests. But to do this means adaptation of our lives, our agriculture, of everything”.

“And this adaptation needs funds,” she added, “so, we say OK, and we entered the carbon markets.

But back home, Greenpeace Africa have accused her of encouraging land-grabbing after she signed a mission order telling a team to “arracher” (which translates as “wrest”) consent from local communities for a carbon offset programme.

At the time, Greenpeace campaigner Irene Wabiwa accused her of “demonstrat[ing] contempt for Congolese law, civil society and the rights of local communities”.

Human Rights Watch researcher Thomas Fessy said “it’s easy to suspect that Bemba’s family – particularly at a time when a close political ally is at the helm of the environment ministry – has seen a business opportunity in a field that relatively new to Congo”.

The DRC is home to a twentieth of the world’s forest and polluting companies are expected be buying $10-40 billion a year of carbon offsets by 2030.

Magalie Bemba, Eve Bazaiba and the government of the DRC did not respond to requests for comment.

The post Witness bribing minister’s family own Congolese carbon credit company appeared first on Climate Home News.

The American firm had offered Ruto support in running the summit during a meeting with him and US ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman in late May, several sources told Climate Home News. 

A few days later, in early June, McKinsey wrote the concept note, which set the summit’s structure, and later drafted a paper to frame its outcome. 

“For a few weeks, it was their way or the highway,” a source close to the summit’s organisation told Climate Home. 

At the time, the Kenyan government said civil society accusations that Mckinsey had captured the summit were “extremely far from the truth”. McKinsey said the claims were “inaccurate”. 

But the backlash publicly exposed the influence McKinsey wields on Africa’s climate agenda – a position it would prefer to keep discreet. 

Leaked documents 

Now, Climate Home has obtained leaked documents and interviewed multiple sources, who have asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.

They show how McKinsey dominates an ecosystem pushing carbon markets in Africa and processes designed to help governments develop long-term energy plans.  

This has been facilitated by McKinsey’s deep-rooted ties with Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), which is responsible for delivering on a 2030 sustainable development goal for everyone to have access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy; and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), which works to accelerate the energy transition.  

In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop28

Climate Home’s investigation reveals that SEforAll staff complained of CEO Damilola Ogunbiyi’s “preferential treatment” of McKinsey in a whistleblower report in 2020.

That year, SEforAll brought in the firm to facilitate a leadership retreat and develop the organisation’s business plan. At the time, SEforAll’s top management dismissed the allegation. 

Three years on, documents show how McKinsey has turned initial pro-bono work into lucrative contracts. 

A source close to SEforAll told Climate Home that McKinsey encountered hardly any competition and enjoyed “almost unrestricted access to the highest levels of the UN and national governments”. 

An SEforAll spokesperson said: “All SEforALL processes are followed at all times in the selection and engagement of any advisory services,” adding that any idea to the contrary was “baseless”.  

“Come to take over” 

African government insiders say McKinsey’s domination is problematic because it is pushing a top-down tunnel vision and non-Afro-centric view of how to address the continent’s climate and development challenges, which, if unquestioned, could constrain its ambition. 

“The role of McKinsey is highly problematic because they don’t come in a capacity support role, they come to take over,” said one source. 

There is a role for consultants to help governments and international organisations plug skill and knowledge gaps.

In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop28

But consultancies should advise “from the sidelines in a transparent way… rather than be allowed to run the show from the centre,” economist Mariana Mazzucato and researcher Rosie Collington write in their book about the consulting industry The Big Con.

Michael Marchant is head of investigations at Open Secrets, an NGO which advocates for private sector accountability and investigated McKinsey’s work in South Africa. 

He told Climate Home that despite receiving large amounts of public money, large consultancy firms like McKinsey “operate in secrecy and with almost no public accountability”.  

Heart of climate governance 

Yet, allowed in by governments, McKinsey has found a place at the heart of critical climate governance processes. France24 recently reported that McKinsey is pushing fossil fuel interests in its advisor role to the UAE, which will preside over the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai starting this week. 

The company’s client list includes some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies, including Saudi Aramco, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell, according to court filings in the US, where McKinsey is being sued alongside Big Oil. McKinsey rejects the accusations.

In more recent years, McKinsey has advised polluters, including oil and gas companies, on how to use the carbon market to offset their emissions or raise revenue. A 2022 internal McKinsey document, seen by Climate Home, names Chevron and BP among clients of its carbon market business line.

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In Africa, the consultancy is behind a push to significantly grow the continent’s carbon offset offering, working closely with both GEAPP and SEforAll. 

In 2021, McKinsey supported the Rockefeller Foundation to design and establish GEAPP, according to a McKinsey document seen by Climate Home. The following year, GEAPP asked SEforAll to hire McKinsey to develop the African Carbon Market Initiative for $1.5 million as part of its grant to the organisation, Climate Home understands.  

Launched at Cop27 in Egypt, the initiative aims to scale carbon markets on the continent 19-fold by 2030.

While GEAPP and SEforAll publicly sponsored the initiative, McKinsey described its role in a sustainability report as “shaping and refining the initiative’s ambition” and “developing its strategy”. McKinsey’s concept note for the Africa Climate Summit elevated carbon markets to a core theme.

President Ruto appointed Joseph Ng’ang’a, GEAPP’s vice president of Africa, CEO of the summit. 

President William Ruto has appointed Mr Joseph Ng’ang’a, Vice President of Africa at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP, as Chief Executive Officer of the inaugural Africa Climate Summit, which will take place in Nairobi from 4- 6 September 2023.… pic.twitter.com/eKtjGri5s8

— Kenyan Wallstreet (@kenyanwalstreet) June 12, 2023

Climate campaigners denounced the focus on carbon markets as “a dangerous distraction” from African climate priorities and accused McKinsey of working to protect the interests of its western corporate clients. 

McKinsey has repeatedly dismissed these allegations, arguing there is no way to deliver emissions reductions without working with high-emitting industries and that it has rigorous policies to manage conflict of interests. 

A spokesperson for the company said “sustainability is a mission-critical priority for McKinsey”, which has “committed to rapidly scale this work to help clients in all industries reach net zero by 2050”. 

A GEAPP spokesperson said it was established “to unite a diverse range of partners” to rapidly facilitate a global shift towards renewable energy. In doing so, it “leverages a spectrum of… experts and consultants”. 

A close relationship  

McKinsey’s rapidly growing climate work in Africa has been facilitated by a close relationship between its African Sustainability Practice lead Adam Kendall and SEforAll’s CEO Ogunbiyi, who also serves as a UN special representative for sustainable energy. 

Before joining SEforAll, Ogunbiyi worked closely with Kendall, who led McKinsey’s natural gas practice in Lagos, Nigeria. He helped build the Nigerian vice president’s advisory power team and worked with the Rural Electrification Agency, which Ogunbiyi both headed. 

A McKinsey document describing its previous work for SEforAll said the firm “provided strategic support to Ms. Ogunbiyi during her transition” into her new CEO role, starting in January 2020.  

Weeks later, Kendall was invited to co-facilitate an SEforAll leadership retreat in London and subsequently developed the organisation’s 2021-2023 business plan, effectively for free. 

Thanks @Shell for hosting our Leadership Team meeting and @RockyMtnInst and @McKinsey for facilitating #SEforALL 3.0 strategy in making. pic.twitter.com/BPue9Fhyez

— Sustainable Energy for All | #SDG7BeBold (@SEforALLorg) January 24, 2020

The same year, McKinsey seconded employee Ugo Nwadiani to SEforAll. An SEforAll recruitment note shows he was directly appointed Ogunbiyi’s special assistant. 

Whistleblower report  

An anonymous complaint prepared by several SEforAll staff raised concerns about these developments.  

A source said the complaint was backed widely among employees and sent to the organisation’s whistleblowing account and to one of its major funders. 

It described “a culture of fear” at SEforAll, and accused Ogunbiyi’s leadership of being “marked by favouritism”, including towards McKinsey. 

During the business planning process, McKinsey “had direct access to SEforALL financial information and organizational systems and processes” putting the company “in a privileged position” to apply for any future tender, it said.

It raised concerns that McKinsey had been the only firm asked to comment on terms of reference for work to update Nigeria’s integrated energy plan which SEforAll was seeking to contract out. McKinsey had worked with the Nigerian government on the first version of the plan the previous year. It was eventually hired for the job. 

Slow start for Indonesia’s much-hyped carbon market

Responding to the complaint at the time, SEforAll’s management said it had strengthened procurement oversight and put in place mechanisms to help “create a climate of trust”.  

Since then, SEforAll has hired McKinsey to work on at least three of its five core initiatives in Africa: developing energy transition plans, scaling up the carbon market, and boosting renewable energy manufacturing capabilities.  

Francesco Starace, chair of SEforAll’s governance board, said the board was satisfied with the outcome of a review process following the complaint. “We are confident with the integrity of the SEforALL procurement process and the leadership demonstrated by the CEO and the executive management team,” he said. 

McKinsey’s work in Nigeria  

McKinsey’s extensive work for SEforAll in the early days of Ogunbiyi’s leadership set it up for further opportunities.   

In Nigeria, McKinsey provided the modelling which underpins the country’s energy transition plan pro bono, working with SEforAll and the former government. A new government, which came into office in May, has warned that it will need a lot more investment to deliver

Chukwumerije Okereke, a Nigerian climate governance expert, said the exercise was a “cautionary tale”. The use of McKinsey-owned tools prevented robust scrutiny of the assumptions in the model, he told Climate Home. And the “closed door” process and lack of consultation may partly explain diminished political momentum to implement it, he added.  

Ghana’s flood victims blame government for overflowing dam destruction

More recently, SEforAll and Kendall’s McKinsey team have sought funding to develop energy transition plans in up to ten developing countries, according to a 2021 joint concept note for funders, obtained by Climate Home.

With support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the pair has developed a plan for Ghana, and is working to do the same in Kenya and Barbados using a joint open-source model. In Kenya, draft plans, seen by Climate Home, would increase gas power capacity in the 2040s.

SEforAll told Climate Home these plans were procured through an open and transparent process, rigorously peer reviewed and subject to civil society consultations.  

For Okereke, international consultants can bring quality and gravitas to energy planning. “But it’s about the way they do it.”  

The post Leaks reveal how McKinsey drives African climate agenda appeared first on Climate Home News.

With vast sunbaked, windswept deserts and 2.5 million people, the southern African nation has plenty of renewable resources to go around. 

Meanwhile rich, densely populated Europe, South Korea and Japan are crying out for clean fuel to decarbonise hard-to-electrify sectors like fertilisers, steel and shipping. Their net zero plans depend on it. 

Keen to secure pole position in the global race for green hydrogen, last year the EU began reaching agreements with prospective producers. One of the most trumpeted deals was signed with Namibia on the sidelines of Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. 

“We want to fight climate change. We want to have clean energy. And as I said, you have all the resources in abundance. So let us team up,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the direction of her Namibian counterpart, hailing the partnership as a “big win-win situation for all of us”. 

Tapping into solar and wind energy for export is central to President Hage Geingob’s economic strategy. Namibia is seeking $20 billion of investment in green hydrogen – more than its entire GDP of $12 billion in 2022. Government authorities are negotiating funding options with the EU. 

As with any heavy industry, though, the hoped-for boom will come at a cost to local communities and ecosystems. The benefits to ordinary Namibians are less certain. 

Namibia is planning a series of projects to catapult the country into becoming a major green hydrogen exporter. (Credit: Fanis Kollias/Spoovio)

In a months-long investigation, Climate Home News and Oxpeckers visited the site of the flagship project, a $10 billion complex near the southern coastal town of Lüderitz, which is being developed by a Namibia-based company called Hyphen Hydrogen Energy.

The reporter on the ground found a community largely in the dark about the development and nervous about the impact on fishing and tourism. Experts shared frustration at the secretive tender process, scepticism about job prospects for Namibians and concerns for the area’s unique wildlife. 

The green hydrogen complex 

Perched between the Namib desert and the Atlantic Ocean, Lüderitz is named after a German colonist. It was the centre of a diamond rush in 20th century and of a colonial history that repressed indigenous Africans. Germany officially apologised in 2021 for colonial-era atrocities, recognising them as “genocide”. 

Today, its Art Nouveau architecture, fresh seafood and wildlife draws a modest number of tourists, who can visit ghost towns abandoned after the diamond rush. The town is surrounded by the Tsau//Khaeb National Park, home to seals, penguins, flamingoes and ostriches. The park and surrounding lands are off-limits to residents to prevent illegal diamond mining. 

Green hydrogen is set to to transform the character of this small enclave once again. 

Hyphen’s plans show an initial 5GW of wind turbines and solar panels to supply power, according to the project’s factsheet published by the Namibian government. In this arid region, a desalination plant is needed to supply fresh water. An electrolysis plant will split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, before the hydrogen gas is converted into liquid ammonia. A new deepwater port will accommodate tankers to ship the end product around the world. The company aims to produce 300,000 tons of ammonia a year, commissioning the first phase by 2026, Hyphen’s website says. 

To build all this, Hyphen expects to bring in 15,000 workers, roughly doubling Lüderitz’s population. Lüderitz Town Council is planning a new town in the desert to house the influx, immediately south of the historic Kolmanskuppe ghost town. 

An opaque tender process 

“We were a little surprised at the government’s choice of a partner,” said Phil Balhao, an opposition party member of the Lüderitz Town Council.  

Other bidders like South Africa’s Sasol and Australian Fortescue Future Industries had an “established track record” that “seemingly just got ignored”, he said. 

The tender process was overseen by the Namibia Investments Development & Promotions Board (NIDPB), which sits in the president’s office. In September 2020, the board appointed James Mnyupe as green hydrogen commissioner. It launched the first call for proposals in early 2021. 

In a televised speech, Mnyupe said the tender was exempt from public procurement rules. Instead, he cited tourism and conservation laws as the basis to hold a closed selection process. 

Graham Hopwood, director of the Institute of Public Policy Research, a public-interest think-tank based in Windhoek, was not impressed.

“With such a major and strategic project, there needs to be transparency and accountability from the outset. The fact that this project is mired in secrecy is raising red flags,” he said.

The Namibian government published a list of six bidders, who submitted nine bids between them. However, the content of the bids was not made public, nor the reasoning for Hyphen’s selection. 

Hyphen said this was standard practice, given the commercially sensitive data contained in the bids. They added the process was “competitive”. 

“It would be irresponsible and to the detriment to the development of the Hyphen project and Namibia’s broader green hydrogen industry for it to publish commercially sensitive agreements in the public domain that competitor projects/countries could use to compete against Namibia,” Hyphen said in a statement. 

The Namibian government said the tender was “conducted with the utmost transparency and fairness”. 

They said that the three-person bid evaluation committee did a “detailed and comprehensive evaluation” of the proposals, supported by independent experts from the US government’s national renewable energy laboratory and the EU’s technical assistance facility on sustainable energy.

Who is Hyphen? 

Hyphen is a joint venture between two companies – Enertrag and Nicholas Holdings Limited. 

Enertrag, owned by a 59-year-old East German nuclear physicist called Jörg Müller has a long track record of building renewables. It is pursuing green hydrogen projects across the world in Uruguay, Vietnam and South Africa. 

Nicholas Holdings Limited is a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, which owns its stake in Hyphen through a special purpose vehicle based in Mauritius. The ultimate owner of the company is a South African investor called Brian Myerson.

The CEO of Hyphen is South African businessman Marco Raffinetti. 

Myerson is a South African who spent decades as an investor in the UK, where he made headlines for battling the business establishment.

In 2010, Myerson was found by a panel of top UK lawyers to have behaved dishonestly in averting a takeover of Principle Capital, the investment firm he co-founded.

The Takeover Appeal Board found that Myerson and co-conspirators made a “deliberate attempt to circumvent” rules around taking over companies and then attempted to cover up their rule-breaking when the authorities began to investigate. He was banned from getting involved in mergers for three years. 

Dishing out the punishment, the panel said it was only the second time it had done so, which it said, “is some indication of the extreme nature of the sanction”. 

A spokesperson for Hyphen, Enertrag and Nicholas Holdings Limited described this incident as a “historic matter” over “an alleged technical infringement” which “remains contested”. It should not be used to draw conclusions about Myerson’s character, they argued. 

They added that the Takeover Appeal Board had no formal regulatory powers and UK financial regulators took no action in respect of the alleged breach of the rules. 

A spokesperson for the Namibian government said it these were “historical legal matters, that to best of our knowledge have since been resolved”. 

Myerson’s previous ventures on the African continent include a failed bid to scale up bioethanol production in Mozambique. Like today’s green hydrogen push, this was driven by EU demand: in 2007, the bloc set a to blend a percentage of biofuels into petrol. Investors piled into Mozambique, touting it as a “biofuels superpower”.

Myerson set up Principle Energy, based on the Isle of Man. It made bold promises to plant sugarcane over 20,000 hectares of land, build one of the top production facilities in the world and employ 1,600 people. Then the global bioethanol market collapsed and by 2013 the company closed, having planted just 136 hectares, according to a report by GRAIN. 

His involvement in Hyphen is likely to be of concern, said IPPR’s Hopwood, adding Hyphen’s leadership was “questionable”.

Use of tax havens

Myerson’s investment in Hyphen is structured through the British Virgin Islands and Mauritius. Both rank poorly in the Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy and corporate tax haven indexes. 

Raffinetti said that Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands were “tax neutral jurisdictions with efficient financial markets”. A lot of infrastructure investment in Africa goes through Mauritius, he said, and investors are subject to tax in the countries where they are registered. 

Tax Justice Network analyst Bob Michel said that investment into Africa goes through Mauritius because of its tax rules. “Mauritius is a corporate tax haven,” he said.

“(Mauritius’) domestic tax regime combined with its vast tax treaty network allow third country investors to use it to siphon profits from operations in Africa with the least of taxes paid in the countries where the operations take place,” Michel said by email.

A spokesperson for the Namibian government said it was “aware of the jurisdictions through which certain Hyphen shareholders hold their equity in Hyphen”.  

The spokesperson added: “Should [the Namibian government] come across any conduct that is unbecoming of its laws and global best practice, rest assured [we] will take the necessary swift corrective action.”

Great expectations 

Raffinetti, Hyphen’s CEO, previously developed gas power and rooftop solar bids in South Africa. The Richard Bay gas project he co-led is facing legal challenge by environmental activists due to its climate impact.

Wearing glasses and a black turtleneck, Raffinetti joined a video call with Climate Home in late October. He warned interviewers the internet might cut out due to the power cuts his native South Africa is plagued with.

The interview was granted, through a PR agency, on condition Hyphen could vet the quotes used. Some of the more colloquial soundbites reporters transcribed came back replaced with cautious jargon, and an admonition to put everything in its full context. Hyphen separately responded in writing to detailed concerns raised by sources.

“There’s an enormous amount of expectation in Namibia around this project. So there’s a huge amount of media attention,” Raffinetti said in one approved quote. “As the first large-scale project in Namibia’s green industrialisation strategy, we have an enormous obligation to get it right.”

Biodiversity concerns 

Dr Jean-Paul Roux, a retired marine biologist working in the area for decades, pointed to where the Luderitz peninsula ends at Angra Point. It is the northernmost tip of the Karoo ecosystem, he explained, unique to southern Africa.

In the dry summer season, the desert landscape looks drab and lifeless. Winter rains bring a green explosion of rare plants such as the endemic Lithops optica, a tiny succulent that gets as old as 90 years. 

“Here you can find up to 1,000 different plant species in just one square kilometre, some so small no bulldozer operator will even notice them,” he said. He spots signs of hyenas and porcupines. 

This is the area earmarked for the deepwater port, desalination and ammonia plants. 

Roux said the development would have a massive impact on Shearwater Bay and the adjacent Sturmvogelbucht, a lagoon teeming with flamingos and a heavy-sided dolphin population that he has been studying for years and visits every day. 

“This is the only place along the southern African coast where you can watch them from your car,” he said as this smallest of all dolphin species approached to within a few meters of the beach. He fears that once developers start blasting rock for the port construction, dolphins will leave and never return. 

The Tsau//Khaeb National Park is classified by Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism as a biodiversity hotspot. (Credit: Fanis Kollias/Spoovio/Luderitz Marine Research)

Dr Antje Burke, a veteran botanist, is working as a consultant to Hyphen. She said at a conference of the Namibian Scientific Society in July that Hyphen was trying to avoid the most sensitive areas, but “one big problem” is that a species of parsley “overlaps almost completely with the concession area”. 

She added that “even more concerning” was the future development plans. “The Hyphen project is developing the service infrastructure really keeping the future developments in mind… That means the entire area will be developed.”

Burke indicated some adjustments that could mitigate the environmental impact.

“No green energy project can be implemented without some environmental impact and Hyphen’s objective is to minimise environmental impacts to the largest extent possible,” Hyphen CEO Marco Raffinetti said in an interview with Climate Home. 

The company has hired consultancy SLR to prepare an environmental and social impact report and lead a “comprehensive stakeholder engagement process”, Hyphen added in a written statement.

Consultants are currently gathering meteorological data and reporting a baseline of wildlife and plants in the area, SLR reports say. The formal environmental impact study is expected to start next year, the official documents add.

A group of Flamingoes at a lagoon within the Tsau//Khaeb National Park in Namibia, where green hydrogen developments are meant to ship the gas to the EU. (Photo: John Grobler)

Loss of access 

Aside from the northern end of the bay, the peninsula is the only publicly accessible area of the Lüderitz region. The rest is Sperrgebiet or “forbidden area” – a legacy of the diamond rush. 

Some of Hyphen’s infrastructure will reduce public access to the peninsula. Hyphen’s Raffinetti said this was “unavoidable” as it was “the only location feasible for a deepwater port”. 

The other access to the sea is the four-kilometre Agate Beach to the north of the enclave, downwind from the last few local fishing factories and an overflowing municipal sewage plant. 

Residents fear this would impact lobster fishing and rock angling. Crayfish fisheries, one of the area’s tourism attractions and an informal source of income would also be affected, locals said. 

“The people in the township’s poorest areas [have] got nowhere else to go. They are going to strip this bay [Agate beach] clean of everything,” said Gerd Kessler, a fourth-generation Buchter as locals call themselves, referring to a potential concentration of fisheries in the area.  

As owner of Five Roses Aquaculture and three smaller oyster-breeding operations, Kessler employs 100 people. 

Felsenkirche, a Lutheran church built in 1912 in Lüderitz. (Photo: SkyPixels/Wikimedia Commons)

A massive new seawall and harbour at Angra Point could have unpredictable impacts on currents in the bay, he cautioned. When the existing shallow port was expanded in the late 1960s by filling in the channel between the town and Shark Island, the sea quickly stripped away the town’s little beach inside Robert Harbour. 

Kessler’s biggest concern was how Hyphen planned to dispose of the brine from their desalination plant. “You can’t just dump that anywhere, you have to make sure you use the currents to disperse it,” Kessler said. 

Questionable job prospects 

Hyphen expects to create 15,000 jobs in the construction phase and 3,000 to operate the finished complex. It is aiming for 90% of these jobs to go to Namibians, and 30% to youth. 

There is a huge skills gap, Namibian business groups warned. 

“We do not even have a category for petrochemical or petroleum engineers at the moment,” said Sophia Tekie, chairperson of the Engineering Council of Namibia (ECN). “If we have any, they are registered as [one of 40] chemical engineers.” 

“Although the ECN has 2,015 registered engineers in eight disciplines at present, about 30 to 40% of them were already retired and only did part-time consultancy work,” said her predecessor, Markus von Jeney. 

Local construction capacity did not look much better: according to Bärbel Kircher, director of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), their membership had declined from 480 companies in 2015 to 240 member companies, operating at only 50% capacity, she said.  

“Currently, our local contractors are largely displaced by foreign contractors, excluding them from opportunities. This is often due to conditions set by external financiers,” said Kircher.  

In the past, the country has struggled to complete large projects due to corruption charges.  

Since 2013, the Namibian Ports Authority, the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia and the Ministry of Agriculture have borrowed over N$21 billion (about US$400 million each, mostly from the African Development Bank) for infrastructure projects, including the 3MW Neckartal dam.  

The Namibian High Court declared the dam was commissioned in 2008 under corrupted circumstances. The project was eventually completed at three times the original price in 2017. 

Namibian construction companies were not likely to benefit from the green hydrogen projects, the CiF said. “The current procurement methods and trends do not provide a promising outlook for the future,” said Kirchner. 

Hyphen said the company would implement “targeted training interventions at various levels” including “specialized Masters’ programs, internships and apprenticeships”. 

The Karoo ecosystem is unique to Southern Africa. The Tsau//Khaeb National Park is a biodiversity hotspot hosting a part of this ecosystem. (Photo: John Grobler)

European support 

Under the memorandum of understanding signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, the EU will provide technical expertise, trade incentives and, crucially, help to secure infrastructure finance. 

Moments after von der Leyen and Geingob inked their deal, the European Investment Bank promised loans of up to €500 million ($528m) for renewable hydrogen investments in Namibia. “Let’s bring flesh to the bone,” the bank’s chief Werner Hoyer told the audience. 

Shortly after the event, Hyphen announced that it had “signed a €35 million agreement with the European Investment Bank to finance the early development of our project”. This was somewhat premature. The bank had supplied a letter of intent, not a firm commitment of funding. 

Since the initial announcement, European institutions, Namibian government officials and private actors have been working out the details of the partnership. 

Hyphen is looking for €100 million to start work on the project.

“We have been very grateful to the EIB and the European Commission for making available the initial funding to share the early development risk,” said Raffinetti in late September, suggesting a firm commitment from the European backers. 

The Hyphen CEO went on to outline what the deal with the EIB should look like: a €10 million ($10.5 million) grant – “still to be finalised,” he added – and a €25 million ($26.4 million) “soft loan”, meaning it would come with favourable terms for the company.

An EIB spokesperson said no agreement has been signed yet. “We are in the process of completing our due diligence, after which the project will be presented to the EIB’s governing bodies for approval,” they said.

“Potential financial support at this early stage would be for site studies and feasibility studies. Any support for implementation will be conditional to the project complying with the Bank’s environmental and social (E&S), procurement, compliance and other standards,” they added.

Namibia’s president Hage Geingob, EIB president Werner Hoyer, Belgian prime minister Alexander de Croco and EU president Ursula von der Leyen announcing the EU green hydrogen partnership with Namibia at Cop27. (Photo: EIB)

On top of the cash injection, the EU’s international partnership division could provide a first-loss guarantee. If the project does not go to plan and the borrower cannot pay back its debt, the EU will pick up the tab – or at least part of it. 

Without the “bedrock” of public money it would be impossible to lure in commercial lenders and leave a huge funding gap, Raffinetti said. 

A European Commission spokesperson told Climate Home that “at present, there is not yet any financial assistance under the EU budget mobilised in favour of the Hyphen project”.

The Netherlands is also supporting the project. Dutch companies like the Port of Rotterdam and gas pipeline operator Gasunie see a business opportunity to offload the green ammonia from ships and pipe it to industry inland.

In June, green hydrogen commissioner Mnyupe told a national newspaper that the Dutch government had given Namibia a €40m grant to develop green hydrogen. He said the government would use €23m of this to buy a stake in Hyphen.

The Dutch said the money was not Namibia’s to spend. The €40m grant comes from Invest International, a public fund set up in 2019 to advance Dutch interests abroad and promote economic growth in the developing world. 

Invest International’s lead on hydrogen Bart De Smet told Climate Home that the €40m grant will be distributed by a fund manager independent of the Namibian government and won’t necessarily go to Hyphen. 

Who benefits? 

The big question for Namibians is whether the inevitable disturbance of a unique ecosystem and small-town culture will be worth it. 

The Namibian government is taking a 24% stake in Hyphen through its sovereign wealth fund. It is expected to raise further revenues through taxes, royalties, land rental and environmental levies on the project, Hyphen said. 

“The benefit for the country in terms of economic upliftment is enormous. Because Namibia is only 2.5 million people. So if you’re successful, your impact on each human being’s life can be enormous,” Raffinetti said. 

Patrick Neib, an unemployed resident of the Nautilus township behind Luderitz, could certainly use some upliftment. He moved to the area in 2015 in search of a better job that has yet to materialise. 

Like many residents, he found out about Hyphen from social media. Most of Hyphen’s public meetings took place in Keetmanshoop, the regional capital 350 km away. 

The secrecy and technical jargon used by Hyphen and its consultants made it impossible for the ordinary layman to understand or access any opportunities, Neib said.  

“There is just no public discussion about the benefits for ordinary people like me, or what price we are to pay for green hydrogen development,” he said. “My question is, who or what is really behind all of this?” 

This story was reported in collaboration with Oxpeckers Investigative Journalism Centre and was supported by a grant from Journalismfund Europe.

The post Shades of green hydrogen: EU demand set to transform Namibia appeared first on Climate Home News.

Chloé Farand’s eye-opening report from Ghana adds to this debate by showing how ruinously expensive it can be to import shipped gas.

The heavily-indebted nation is planning a 17-year agreement with Shell to ship gas in through a new UK and German-backed terminal.

Critics describe this deal as a rope hanging around Ghana’s neck and ask why the government hasn’t learned its lessons from a previous bad gas deal.

That “take or pay contract” was signed when Ghana was suffering power cuts in the mid-2010s. It has since pushed up electricity prices and left many Ghanaians now choosing between power and food.

It also caused an over-supply of gas which dampened enthusiasm for renewables and for capturing the gas which oil companies burn as a waste product.

And it’s not just Ghana whose economy has been damaged by dependence on fossil fuel imports. Just ask Sri Lankans. Or Europeans last winter.

This week’s news:

• Court says renewable firms can seize Spain’s property after subsidy cuts
• Gas lock-in: Debt-laden Ghana gambles on LNG imports
• UK government bets on ‘pragmatic’ climate inaction ahead of election
• Amazon governments set sights on narco-deforestation
• Deep-sea mining ban draws closer despite China’s opposition
• Brazil seeks European trade advantages in return for Amazon protection

…and comment:

• As Guyana shows, carbon offsets will not save the Amazon rainforest

Britain’s climate election

Brits like me have tended to look on smugly as the climate culture war dominates elections in places like the US, Australia and Brazil.

We’ve tended to have a relative cross-party consensus, at least rhetorically, between the main parties – helped by a legally-binding net zero target and the climate change committee.

But, after a surprise election victory in suburban London was credited to anti-air pollution measures, the Conservative government has decided it can save itself from electoral annihilation by making climate action an issue in next year’s election.

By cutting climate finance and backing oil and gas production and polluting vehicles, they’re seeking to contrast their “pragmatic” climate action with the opposition Labour Party’s scary, expensive, radical policies.

But pollsters told Climate Home that this could backfire as “British voters remain one of the most pro-climate in the Western world”.

The real risk is that it scares the Labour Party – whose current leader’s principles are notoriously flexible – into dropping their promise to stop issuing oil and gas licenses.

That would be a shame. Since the launch of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance two and a half years ago, the handful of countries committing to stop pumping oil has not grown.

As a decent-sized oil and gas producer, the UK joining would be a huge boost to the agenda and with it the hopes of keeping global warming to 1.5C.

The post Ghana’s gas curse – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the past, his earnings have been sufficient to provide for his family. But Gakpo is now struggling to make ends meet. 

Once the poster child economy for West Africa, Ghana is suffering from its worst economic crisis in a generation. The debt-laden nation is gripped by soaring inflation and a depreciating currency that has pushed it to default on some of its debt payments. 

The energy sector has been a major contributor to the country’s financial woes. A lack of planning and unfavourable fossil fuel contracts have previously locked Ghana into paying for gas power far in excess of what it could use, pushing the sector into spiralling debt. 

Electricity tariffs have increased around 50% for small businesses and households since September alone. Gakpo says his electricity bill has doubled in a year. To cope, he is cutting back buying food for his family. 

John Gakpo milling corn flour in his workshop in Accra. (Photo: Emmanuel Ameyaw)

Yet opposition lawmakers, energy analysts and local NGOs have warned that Ghana’s plans to import liquified natural gas (LNG) under a 17-year agreement with oil giant Shell could make things worse. 

The agreement, they say, risks pushing electricity prices even higher, perpetuate a cycle of fossil-fuel related debt and leave little space for renewable energy. 

Until 2020, the UK, Germany and the African Development Bank indirectly channelled development funds for a new LNG terminal in the country.  

The project is part of a $245 billion expansion of gas infrastructure in Africa, according to Global Energy Monitor. But it is among the first to allow commercial LNG imports to a Sub-Saharan African nation. 

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A gamble for economic development  

Ghana is heavily relying on gas to meet its growing power needs. Gas generates half of its electricity, while less than 1% comes from solar. 

The government argues importing LNG will shore up Ghana’s energy security as electricity demand is projected to double between 2022 and the early 2030s. 

Proponents say gas power will need to meet virtually all of this added demand, arguing that domestic gas production is reaching capacity and imports from Nigeria are unreliable. 

LNG, they say, will help power the country’s industrial development, displace dirtier and more expensive heavy fuel oil and support the roll out of intermittent renewable energy. 

This is tied to the construction of a $400 million LNG terminal in the port of Tema. The project aims to turn Ghana into a hub for providing LNG to the West African market. 

But critics have denounced the LNG terminal as an example of how mismanaged gas and power investments are financially crippling the country and failing to deliver reliable and affordable energy. They have urged the government to suspend the project.  

Analysts agree that additional gas supplies could be needed in future. But under the deal, Ghana will have to pay charges for some of the LNG even if it unable to use it –– a type of gas contract known as “take-or-pay”. 

However, neither the contract nor the liabilities Ghana could incur have been made public.  

For many developing countries, take-or-pay obligations can become a form of public debt, explained Accra-based analyst Rushaiya Ibrahim-Tanko, of the Energy for Growth Hub. “That’s why we are asking for these contracts to be made transparent,” she said.  

Opponents say Ghana cannot afford such an opaque deal at a time when the country is receiving its 17th bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the lender of last resort. 

Denis Gyeyir, the Africa programme officer at the Natural Resource Governance Institute in Accra, likened the deal to a rope “hanging around our necks” that could leave cash-strapped Ghana to “suffocate” in more debt. 

Containers in the port of Tema in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst / World Bank)

Energy sector crisis

Ghana is still unable to pay for all the power it consumes. Independent power producers have threatened to shut down their plants if the government doesn’t find a way to pay  $1.7billion in outstanding debt it owes.  

At the same time, the country isn’t using all its own resources. The government has allowed British oil company Tullow to flare gas from its TEN and Jubilee oil fields because it is unable to process the gas. 

Flaring is a wasteful practice that releases climate-heating carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere and is harmful to human health. 

Analysis of government data shows that between 2019 and 2022, Tullow flared or re-injected into its oil fields 325 billion cubic feet of gas – worth close to $400m, according to the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (Acep). 

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In 2022 alone, Tullow flared or re-injected two and half times more gas than what Ghana could receive in LNG in the first year of the deal. 

“With the amount of gas that we are flaring we could meet a lot of demand for power generation if we are able to create new processing capacity," Charles Ofori, climate policy lead at Acep, told Climate Home. 

The company, which has committed to end routine flaring by 2025, says it is committed to agree a long-term gas sales deal with the Ghanaian government. 

The Tema project

Located in the eastern port of Tema, in Ghana’s industrial enclave, the LNG terminal will combine a purpose-built floating regasification unit and a former tanker converted to receive and store the liquid gas. 

The project developers say the terminal will have the capacity to process 1.7 million tons of LNG a year – or around 30% of Ghana’s electricity generating capacity. 

It is developed by a partnership between two leading Africa-focused private equity firms: London-based Helios Investment Partners and the Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM). 

AIIM’s investments in the project included funding from the African Development Bank, and the UK and Germany’s development finance institutions. Both the UK and Germany defended their investments in AIIM, arguing the firm funded necessary infrastructure to meet growing energy demand in Africa. 

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, which is backed by European donors, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa also contributed finance. 

World Bank adaptation funds slept through Pakistan’s record flooding

Keeping a low profile

First expected in 2020, the LNG terminal has been repeatedly delayed – something critics have described as “lucky”. Europe’s soaring demand for LNG to replace Russian gas pushed up prices and contributed to the delay. 

Commercial operations are now expected to begin in 2025 and LNG deliveries will be phased in to reach capacity towards the end of the decade.  Plans for Ghana to re-export the LNG to neighbouring countries remain elusive. 

The project partners are keeping a low profile about the plans. AIIM is the only partner to have responded to Climate Home’s questions. 

It said the project will ensure “a significant portion of the population in Ghana can benefit from cleaner and more economical energy sources” and help reduce the cost of power generation. 

But energy analysts are concerned the opposite may be true. Extracts of the contract obtained by Acep show the price of LNG is indexed on the price of crude oil – a common practice for long-term LNG contracts which exposes countries to volatile crude prices.   

Several analysis found LNG could be Ghana’s most expensive gas supply. 

“What Tema LNG will do is make the electricity much, much more expensive,” opposition lawmaker John Jinapor, former deputy minister of energy, told Climate Home. “It could result in huge financial debt. It’s really serious,” he said.   

A woman sets up her breakfast stand near a mobile money box on the side of the road in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: IMF Photo/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

Take-or-pay contracts: Ghana’s curse

Former minister Jinapor is familiar with the consequences of excessive gas contracts. 

In response to a period of power shortages in 2012-2016, known as “dumsor” – literally “off -on” – his party, then in power, signed dozens of emergency “take-or-pay” power agreements with support from development finance institutions. 

From a severe undersupply crisis, Ghana soon experienced the opposite problem: it became contracted to purchase gas and power beyond what it could use.   

The IMF estimates that the take-or-pay contracts and inadequate power tariffs cost the country 2% of its GDP annually since 2019. At the end of 2020, a former energy official revealed excess power and unutilised gas were costing Ghana $1.2bn a year. 

Among the reasons for this bloating bill was an unfavourable “take-or-pay” agreement with oil company Eni to buy 90% of gas produced from its deepwater Sankofa field off Ghana’s western coast at a high price. It was backed by $1.2bn in World Bank Group guarantees and debt financing. 

But a lack of infrastructure meant Ghana was unable to use all the gas it purchased despite paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually for it. The deal was widely criticised for putting undue burden on the country’s finances. 

Revealed: How Shell cashed in on dubious carbon offsets from Chinese rice paddies

The World Bank argued the take-or-pay clause was necessary to make the project viable for private investors. A spokesperson told Climate Home the Sankofa development has been “key to providing energy security to Ghana”. 

While there are no formal discussion to restructure the deal, the World Bank is considering another $300m loan to help Ghana clear its power sector arrears. 

Tess Woolfenden, senior policy officer at Debt Justice, told Climate Home the proposed loan “exemplifies that Ghana is in a lose-lose situation with these take-or-pay contracts,” describing “a very toxic cycle” of fossil fuel investments that exacerbate debt. 

Omar Elmawi, of the ‘Don’t Gas Africa’ campaign, urged African countries to stay away from “expensive and inflexible take-or-pay gas contracts” and prioritise renewable energy. 

Impact on the energy transition

The fallout of Ghana’s energy sector debt has diverted investments away from sustainable development and left little room for the deployment of renewable energy.   

In its 2023 budget, the government has planned to spend three times more to offset the energy sector shortfalls than on investments in the agriculture, fisheries, roads, education, gender, social protection and health sectors combined. 

To address the power oversupply issue, the government suspended licences for grid-connected solar and wind projects. The six-year-old ban was only lifted in April. In 2019, Ghana postponed by 10 years a goal to achieve 10% of renewables in its energy mix by 2020. 

Dennis Asare, of the think tank Imani, told Climate Home the LNG deal will continue to incentivise the use of gas and “delay the energy transition”.   

“We have enormous renewable resources to meet our energy needs but the government is more focused on this LNG agreement,” he said, warning that lower-income households, like the miller Gakpo and his family, will “bear the brunt” of a deepening crisis.   

Emmanuel Ameyaw contributed with additional reporting.

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What does a just energy transition mean for the world’s least developed countries where energy access, especially in rural areas, is a priority for national development?

Last week, a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) between Senegal, France, Germany, and the EU was announced at the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris.

This means Senegal’s government has committed to reaching 40% of renewable energy in the electricity mix, in exchange for €2.5 billion ($2.7bn) from France, Germany, the UK, Canada and the EU.

As the director of the Senegalese think-tank ENDA Energie, my colleagues and I worked to ensure that this deal would not hinder Senegal’s national development goals and that energy access remains a priority of our country.

US ‘still on the fence’ as nations debate global shipping emission tax

First, let us address the elephant in the room – Senegal has been gearing up to become a major gas producer to help develop its economy.

It has been said that revenues from gas will help with the country’s investment in transport, electrification, health, and education. Other arguments for gas have asked whether Global North countries financing renewables in Senegal are merely dictating what we need to do, stopping us from being a prosperous country.

These arguments can be convincing but they are misleading. First, climate and development goals can be achieved together and second, we are changing the way international cooperation works. Our experience with JETP Senegal has given national actors the agency to actively participate in crafting an international deal with the Global North.

International cooperation between the Global North and the Global South is usually done with barely any inputs from the beneficiary countries. This must change if we want to see success in the implementation of such projects.

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This is why we ensured that JETP Senegal is shaped by national actors. We led a process in Senegal that gathered a broad range of local stakeholders – from government, research, civil society, and the private sector – where we worked on a realistic vision for our country.

After a series of discussions we came to a consensus that 40% of renewable energy in the electricity mix is an ambitious yet achievable target, especially provided with international support.

This bottom-up approach has given us lessons on how international cooperation must be conducted. First, having a domestically inclusive and nationally-led process empowers countries like Senegal to achieve their vision for national development.

Instead of being treated merely as beneficiaries where climate targets are dictated to us, an inclusive process gives us the agency to decide, based on scientific data and the realities of our country, what can be realistically achieved without compromising on other national development goals. As a result, the JETP-Senegal has remained in line with our vision of universal energy access in the country.

Additionally, this bottom-up process creates buy-in into the vision from national stakeholders and given broader support, can help facilitate its implementation.

Given that the vision of the JETP was supported by different groups nationally through multi-actor dialogue, it ensures that the priorities remain the same over time, even through changes in government leadership. This is opposed to traditional top-down approaches that risk national and climate goals are abandoned as national leadership changes.

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Second, aligning climate and development goals is crucial for developing and least developed countries. Exclusively focusing on climate targets is a lost opportunity for national development, especially when there is enough evidence to show that both can be achieved simultaneously.

Further, a narrow focus on climate targets is unlikely to garner support from domestic actors for the energy transition, especially in lower- and middle-income countries.

In Senegal, a country where 30% of households lack access to electricity (as of 2018), universal electricity access has been an important development goal. In this case, JETP aligns the target of 40% renewable energy with very ambitious targets for reaching universal electricity access by 2025

Third, we learned that while the focus on energy transformations is important to achieve national development, it is only one part of the solution. A clean, affordable and reliable supply of energy is a key driver of transformations in other sectors, including agriculture, industry and transport.

However, during the process of identifying Senegalese vision, we have also identified the need to transform agriculture, industry, and urban systems. JETPs are therefore not a one-stop solution and must be complemented by financial cooperation that will enable a low-greenhouse gas and resilient transformation of the whole economy. This is particularly so given that other sectors than energy experience even greater challenges in accessing adequate amounts of finance.

Our experience in leading the national process to achieve the best deal on energy transition in Senegal has been an opportunity to show how international cooperation should be conducted. Contrary to some arguments that the Senegalese have no say in international agreements like JETP, we were able to create an international agreement that was shaped by national actors. We are not just passive subjects, we will lead the way in shaping the future of our country.

Secou Sarr is the director of ENDA Energie

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From 2015 to 2020, Mazibuko held public office as a councillor in the Emalahleni Local Municipality. Now, through a a non-profit called Bullet Mkabayi Foundation, she has actively lobbied against the rapid deployment of renewables and the country’s planned coal phase out. 

“We have been lobbying, and will continue to lobby our people to say: reject this thing. It is not going to work for us,” Mazibuko told Oxpeckers and Climate Home News. 

South Africa is at the heart of one of the most ambitious energy transition deals in the world — an $8.5 billion partnership with a group of wealthy countries, among them the US, UK and EU. The Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) seeks to phase out coal in the country by 2035. 

But the nation’s coal sector has exerted a significant pushback to this plan, partnering with politicians and even managing to water down or delay key policies, such as the Climate Change Bill and the Carbon Tax Act. 

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Mazibuko, for example, has held meetings with political leaders such as the Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, and members of the Department of Mineral Resources and the Presidential Climate Commission. She defends a continued use of coal. 

“Coal lobbying has the greatest impact on green energy investments by increasing uncertainty and thus reducing the appetite of investors to invest in green energy,” said Mary Stewart, chief executive of climate consultancy Energetics.

South Africa currently relies heavily on coal for about 70% of total electricity production. The country is also one of the top five coal exporting countries in the world, hosting an influential coal mining industry. 

Several major companies with stakes in the coal sector have kept fossil fuels in their corporate planning. The petrochemical company Sasol, for example, claims to lead development of a “gas economy”, while South Africa’s public electricity company Eskom plans to “repower” stations using gas, according to their 2021 sustainability report.  

Coal lobby 

Progress on South Africa’s energy transition depends on phasing out 14 existing coal-fired power plants, as well as accelerating the deployment of renewable energy. But the coal sector has so far resisted this transition. 

During discussions on South Africa’s Climate Change Bill, a landmark climate legislation still in public hearings, at least four groups -including the country’s own Eskom- made attempts to weaken penalties for polluters, according to a report by climate think tank InfluenceMap. 

The mining industry was the strongest supporter of coal, as multinational companies Anglo American and South32 all participated in lobbying to water down climate legislation in South Africa, the report shows. 

In earlier discussions on the Carbon Tax Act, industry lobbyists pushed for a low tax on greenhouse gas pollution, which ultimately passed in 2019 at a rate of around an $8 per tonne of carbon dioxide. This is much lower than the $40-80 per tonne recommended by the climate think tank Carbon Market Watch to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

At the time, The Minerals Council South Africa, which represents mining companies employing 450,000 people, said the tax was “a wrong method at the wrong time”. 

Industry executives hold similar views on the role of coal in the upcoming years. Mike Teke, CEO of Seriti Resources, owner of six coal mines around Emalahleni that supply Eskom, defended the expansion of their coal business while building renewables. 

One of its subsidiaries, Seriti Green, announced in February 2023 the development of a 155MW wind farm due to come online by 2025. The project, however, will serve to power about 75% of the electricity required in its own coal mines. 

“We’re building wind turbines. However, I want to be clear, we will continue building our coal business at the same time as building our renewables business,” he told Oxpeckers and Climate Home News. 

Mike Tete, CEO of Seriti Resources, plans to expand coal mining activities and power it with renewables.

Uncertain investments 

Lobbying for coal interests has a long history in South Africa, according to Wikus Kruger, research lead and lecturer on power-sector investment in sub-Saharan Africa at the Power Futures Lab, based at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. 

The “minerals-energy complex”, a powerful grouping of business and political leaders related to the coal sector, has influenced decision making since the apartheid time, Kruger said. Today, it has kept an active pushback against the coal phase-out. 

By 2018, South Africa’s public electricity company Eskom had aligned with different political currents, but “coal mining for electricity generation continued to dominate”, according to research published by Oxford University Press. 

Policy certainty is essential for investors to pour money into green energy in South Africa, climate futures analyst Nicholas King told Oxpeckers and Climate Home. But recent events have kept policy decisions far from certain in the country. 

South Africa’s ageing coal-fired power plant fleet has caused an energy crisis all over the country, with blackouts more than tripling in 2022 compared to 2021.

As a result, president Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement to the nation that he would consider delaying coal-fired power plant decommissions. Rich donor countries, on their part, said they were “understanding” of the crisis but warned about the risk of backsliding on the energy transition. 

“You need a clear picture… a roadmap,” King said. “No one’s going to want to invest if the old and really malfunctioning coal-fired power stations are going to have their length of life extended.”

Uncertainty on renewable retraining frightens South Africa’s coal communities

Still committed 

In spite of the current energy crisis and pressures from the coal sector, the government remains committed to South Africa’s decarbonisation targets, said project management unit head Rudi Dicks.

Dicks said any revision to the decommissioning schedule would be informed by a comparison of the costs of refurbishing older coal-fired power stations with the cost of investing in its replacements, including renewables, batteries and gas.

Still, extending the coal-fired power plants’ lives, as well as building new coal-fired power plants, are options being pushed by government factions, specifically in the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, which has a strong interest in coal, said Brett Cohen, climate and energy consultant at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cape Town. 

“The bulk of the pro (coal) lobby is within Mpumalanga; it is people who are concerned about job losses and economic impact,” Cohen said. “There hasn’t been a clear policy signal from the government for renewables, that’s why it has been difficult to invest in renewables in South Africa.” 

King, on his part, said clarity will be key to guarantee renewable growth in the country. “The longer we resist the changes, the more it’s going to be problematic for us to attract that investment, and investors will go to countries that are willing to transition,” he concluded.    

This story was published in partnership between Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism and Climate Home News, and produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center 

The post South Africa’s coal lobby is resisting a green transition appeared first on Climate Home News.

Sofanit is a gender specialist working as the regional gender and social inclusion coordinator at Ripple Effect, formerly known as ‘Send A Cow’.

Ripple Effect works with smallholder farmers to equip them with knowledge and skills enabling them to improve their livelihoods and thrive.

Farmers working alongside Ripple Effect learn more, grow more and sell more. They can feed their families nutritious food, and by having a surplus to sell can invest in their farms, send their children to school and build sustainable agri-businesses.

In this episode, Sofanit takes us through her journey working with women farmers in different African countries to deliver training programs that help them adapt to a changing climate.

She explains how and why women and children are  disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change, and what Ripple Effect is doing to ease the burden on women, children and their households.

Sofanit also explains how other stakeholders can come on board to support this kind of work, ensuring that more and more communities get support to build resilience and
secure a healthy future for themselves and their children.

Sofanit signs off the show by sharing what she wants the upcoming COP27 climate conference in Egypt to deliver in November. Enjoy the show!

Learn more about Ripple Effect on LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube and on their website.

The post Hali Hewa episode 5: Female farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.

Fertiliser prices have increased by 300% in Africa since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted supplies. The continent is facing a fertiliser shortage of two million metric tonnes.

It has sparked a lopsided debate over how best to boost resilience among farmers.

African ministers, multinationals and philanthropists at the annual African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Kigali, Rwanda this week see widespread use of fertilisers as key to increasing yields.

Smallholder advocacy networks, on the other hand, say this model has put farmers at the mercy of volatile global markets and worsened food security.

The AGRF is organised by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which was established in 2006 with the aim of “catalysing a green farming revolution in Africa” and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and USAID. 

Food prices across Africa have increased by an average of 42% since the start of the Covid pandemic, Hailemariam Dessalegn, chair of the AGRF partners group and former prime minister of Ethiopia, said during the forum plenary. “Africa is likely to be the only hungry continent by 2030,” he said.

Deadly flash floods in UAE highlight need for resilience investment

Rwanda’s prime minister Eduoard Ngirente, told the forum that “the use of fertilisers, improving seeds and the adoption of smart agriculture, will build resilience and sustainable food security…What we do now impacts tomorrow’s results”.

Gates, AGRA’s main donor, is a fervent supporter of the fertiliser industry. “I’ve never been shy about my passion for fertiliser,” he wrote in a blog post in 2018 after visiting a fertiliser warehouse in Tanzania. “It’s a magical innovation that’s responsible for saving millions of lives from hunger and lifting millions more out of poverty by boosting agricultural productivity.”

In its latest five-year strategy, seen by Climate Home News, AGRA emphasises the use of fertiliser as a pillar of its agricultural transformation. Between 2017 and 2021, AGRA helped “farmers adopt good agronomic practices” by encouraging 75% to use fertiliser. 49% of farmers were encouraged to adopt more resilient seeds.

A 2020 assessment by Timothy Wise, research fellow at Tufts University, concluded that AGRA’s programme was “failing to bring a productivity revolution to AGRA countries”. The programme had fallen short of its goal to double yields, managing a mere 18% increase in staple crop output over 12 years. For three key crops, yields declined: millet, cassava and groundnuts.

Commenting on AGRA’s new strategy, Wise told Climate Home: “There is little indication of a change in focus. Remarkably, the new strategy pays even less attention to farmer outcomes. No concrete goals for productivity improvement, poverty reduction, or increased food security. No apparent plan to measure them.”

Many smallholder farmers are priced out of using fertilisers, Anne Maina, national coordinator of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya, told Climate Home News. “The biggest beneficiaries of this model are the multinationals that sell these fertilisers,” she said.

African nations eye debt-for-climate swaps as IMF takes an interest

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, of which Maina is a member, says farmers should instead be trained to build soil health using organic fertilisers and compost.

Wise agreed that governments should support a move away from fossil fuel-derived fertilisers.

When the Sri Lankan government implemented a sudden ban on chemical fertilisers and pesticides in April 2021, it caused rice and tea production to fall drastically and food prices to surge. The move sparked a political and economic crisis.

But many Indian states offer a model for gradually shifting to organic methods, Wise said. “The lesson is you can’t go cold turkey… There needs to be a transition process.”

The Rockefeller Foundation told Climate Home it was taking “the views of civil society groups seriously, including those groups who criticise our funding of AGRA.”

“Today our funding focuses on AGRA’s emerging work in regenerative agriculture and agro-ecology,” said Roy Steiner, senior vice president for the Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation. “We appreciate that well-managed and balanced fertiliser use can be an important input to a successful harvest… Our own funding emphasises the use of natural fertilisers, such as through the cultivation of nitrogen-fixing beans, and other biological approaches to improve soil health.”

AGRA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not respond to Climate Home News’ request for comment.

The post Africa food crisis: Bill Gates and smallholders see different solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.

While three African presidents flew to the Netherlands for the Africa Adaptation Summit on Monday, only Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte was there to meet with them.

Rich countries have unmet promises to financially support poorer countries in boosting climate resilience.

Senegal’s president Macky Sall said: “I cannot help but note, with some bitterness, the absence of leaders from the industrial world. I think if we made the effort to leave Africa to come to Rotterdam, it would be easier for the Europeans and others to be here.”

Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo associated himself “wholly with the sentiments of president Macky Sall about the failure of certain vested interests to be present with us at this meeting” and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Felix Tshisekedi said “it is my turn to also deplore the absence of leaders of industrialised nations”.

Ethiopia’s president Sahle-Work Zewde, speaking by video link, echoed their criticisms. She added: “Sometimes, we should not appear to be talking to each other while those who should be with us are not present.”

United Nations deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed said the meeting was “lop-sided” and “a bird only flies on two wings”. She praised African leaders for showing up, adding “it’s not because [they] don’t have anything important do back at home”.

Unmet promises

In 2009, wealthy countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year to developing countries in climate finance by 2020. They fell $17bn short of this target in 2020 and have still yet to meet it, with the US responsible for the vast majority of the shortfall.

The shortfall between a country’s climate finance in 2017-18 and its fair share. (Photo: ODI)

At the meeting in Rotterdam, Macky Sall linked this failure on finance to the viability and fairness of African emissions reduction measures. Senegal is promoting offshore oil and gas exploration while the DRC is auctioning off oil concessions in rainforests and peatlands.

Sall said: “When countries of Africa are asked to renounce polluting developments to deal with the current state of emergency on the planet, it is only fair that, as a counterpart, the cost of adaptation to this should be shared equitably also… notably the financial commitment of $100bn a year.”

African nations eye debt-for-climate swaps as IMF takes an interest

Analysis of six African national plans by PowerShift Africa finds on average they are investing the equivalent of 2.8% of GDP on adapting to climate change. The UN Environment Programme estimates that developing countries will collectively have to spend up to $300bn a year on adapting by 2030.

Rich countries pledged at last year’s Cop26 summit to double their adaptation finance contributions from 2019 levels by 2025. This would increase it from $20bn a year to $40bn. A group of self-proclaimed “adaptation champions”, which does not include the US, has formed to try and meet this goal.

Africa is responsible for just 3% of total historic emissions.

Worries closer to home

In Rotterdam, the European Commission’s climate lead Frans Timmermans said that many European citizens would not be persuaded by the “moral point that those suffering the most consequences are not responsible for creating the crisis”.

He said: “Let’s be frank, many of our citizens in Europe will not buy this argument today because their worries are linked to their own existence in this energy crisis, in this food crisis, in this inflation crisis. This might seem very strange from an African perspective but it is always what is closer to your own worries is always bigger on your agenda than someone else’s worries.”

A more convincing argument for Europeans, Timmermans said, is that “without success in Africa,  there can be no success in Europe – our destinies are so intimately intertwined that if we are not collectively responsible for development in Africa, for Africa being able to use the opportunities it has… we will sink together in an ocean of despair”.

Deadly flash floods in UAE highlight need for resilience investment

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte joined the meeting for the afternoon. He said: “I would have loved to have more of my European colleagues here.”

The Global Center on Adaptation said it had invited the leaders of its traditional funders in France, Norway, Denmark, Canada and Finland.

France’s Emmanuel Macron met instead with French regional leaders in Paris while Canada’s Justin Trudeau stayed home to deal with a mass stabbing in Saskatchewan.

The governments of Finland and Norway did not reply to requests for comment on what their leaders Sanna Marin and Jonas Gahr Store were doing instead.

Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen was occupied with a national military remembrance day but told African leaders by video message: “I know that you want Europe to engage more in your struggles and we should.”

The post African leaders blast European no-shows at climate adaptation summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate Home has spoken to three activists from two countries who were unable to travel to Stockholm because their visas were not processed in time. All three travelled long distances and spent lots of time and money applying. Two are now unable to return to their home country as their passports were sent to Nairobi for processing.

Issa Sesay is the secretary general of Fridays for Future Sierra Leone. His father and brother died in 2018 mudslides linked to climate change and deforestation. Sesay was invited to speak on a panel in Stockholm where he would tell world leaders about the catastrophic aftermath of that disaster.

Instead, he and his colleague Roseline Isata Mansaray have spent ten days in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, travelling daily between their hotel and the Swedish embassy in order to try and get a visa. They are likely to miss the conference entirely.

“We are really stressed and disappointed at the Swedish government,” he said. “We feel discriminated [against] as Africans by the European people.”

Issa Sesay campaigns against deforestation

Fridays for Future Nigeria activist Esther Oluwatoyin is in a similar position. She travelled from her home in Ogun state to the Swedish consulate in Lagos. She applied for her visa on 12 May and spent $90, despite Sweden saying conference delegates would be exempted from an application fee.

She was told that applications usually take 15 days but those for this event would be prioritised. Twenty days later, she has not received her visa and has now missed her flight. “It’s only Africans that are being denied a visa. For that, I was really furious and disappointed,” she told Climate Home.

Esther Oluwatoyin speaks to school students

All three activists’ passports were sent from Nigeria to the Swedish embassy in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. When Climate Home emailed this embassy, an automatic reply said they had a “longer handling time” because May-July is their peak season.

Sesay and Mansaray are unable to return home to Sierra Leone because they do not have their passports. Sesay said they had spent $600 on travel, Covid medicine and the visa application fee, which they can’t afford. The average annual salary in Sierra Leone is $476.

On Twitter, other African activists said they had given up trying to attend. A Gambian youth activist said they travelled to Senegal to apply for a visa and spent three weeks there. “Please cancel my visa application and give me my passport as I do not have the money and energy to stay in Senegal for another day,” they wrote in an anonymised letter shared by Extinction Rebellion Gambia.

Kenyan activist Nyombi Morris tweeted: “I gave up on Stockholm+50, its like UN as the organiser never bothered alerting the embassies to simplify the procedures…for youth delegates”.

Me i gave up on stockholm +50, its like UN as the organiser never bothered alerting the embassies to simplify the procedures…for youth delegates #ActivistsNotValued

— Nyombi Morris (@mnyomb1) May 29, 2022

Maldivian-Swedish activist Lubna Hawwa said that his organisation’s delegate from Zimbabwe had been unable to secure a visa appointment on time. “Clearly there is a gap between Foreign Ministry’s promises and practice,” he tweeted.

The Swedish foreign ministry said that youth involvement was a “priority” and they government “has done its best to facilitate visa applications”.

It said that it was “naturally very unfortunate” that “some participants will not be able to attend because they lack a visa”. They added: “Many visa applications were received at a very late date, which means that not all of them will be approved”.

The spokesperson said: “Sweden must also respect the requirements that EU legislation places on processing visas, including that applications must be complete”. When asked if they had looked into these specific cases, whether they would provide compensation and when the activists could expect their passports back, they did not immediately respond.

The Stockholm+50 summit on 2-3 June marks the anniversary of the seminal 1972 Conference on the Human Environment. Dignitaries including the US’ John Kerry, India’s Bhupender Yadav, Canada’s Steven Guilbeault are expected to attend, along with representatives of business and civil society.

Activists from developing countries, particularly in Africa, have faced similar challenges attending previous climate conferences. At Cop26 in the UK last year, a Peruvian activist was detained by border guards at the airport, who were apparently not aware that delegates had an exemption from Covid rules that applied at the time. Quarantine requirements prevented many developing country delegates from attending.

There are fears that activists and delegates from low-income countries will be excluded from Cop27 in Egypt this year too, after hotels hiked their prices for the November event.

Giza Gaspar Martins, a climate negotiator from Angola, said high accommodation prices had always restricted African participation at the climate talks but that he never heard of a minimum price-setting scheme.

This article was updated to add in the Swedish foreign ministry’s response and to correct Oluwatoyin’s home state from Oyo to Ogun.

The post ‘Furious and disappointed’: African activists excluded from Stockholm+50 summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nevertheless, Africa is facing the brunt of the climate emergency. The rates of temperature increase and sea-level rise are higher in Africa than the global average, according to a report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.

In 2020, deadly floods across the Sahel region compounded the socio-economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate-related disasters pushed the number of people affected by food insecurity up by 40%, and are the single leading sources of displacement.

Some African countries are already spending up to 9% of their GDP on measures to adapt to the climate crisis, according to a study published by the UN Economic Commission for Africa. The study notes that Africa’s spending is disproportionately high compared to its small contribution to global emissions and is also significantly higher than international resources available to the continent.

Africa’s investment, however, is a drop in the bucket of $30-50 billion needed per year by 2030, according to IMF estimates.

Germany’s new government has an opportunity to design, implement, and lead a different kind of engagement with African countries. It can do this by capitalising on what foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has said will lead the way Germany engages with the world and a centrepiece of its G7 presidency: climate diplomacy.

Total pushes ahead with Uganda oil project, stays silent on financial backers

Germany should strategically partner with African countries in creating big, well-designed, whole economy solutions. Piecemeal approaches are no longer enough. The Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa, announced during COP26 in Glasgow last year, worth $8.5 billion over five years, is a start.

Like the South African partnership, solutions must be based on African countries’ priorities. The EU-Africa Summit in February would be a good opportunity to enter into further partnerships.

They however must go further with bigger, more ambitious sums that consist of more grants than loans. They must cover a wide range of issues, starting with the urgent need to adapt to the effects of the climate emergency, and extending to mitigation measures and large-scale infrastructure investments.

The International Climate Initiative, a German funding vehicle that supports the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals, can be deployed to develop such strategic partnerships and whole economy solutions.

Storm Ana’s devastation in southern Africa highlights need for early warnings

Under its G7 presidency, Germany must then ensure that the club of rich, high emitting countries, who make up about a tenth of the world’s population but are responsible for more than half of cumulative emissions, pay for such solutions.

This could be included as a key component of the international climate club that Chancellor Scholz has been championing and that he has announced will be a key goal of Germany’s G7 presidency.

However, the climate club should not be an exclusive club of rich countries, but an alliance in which industrialised countries join forces with emerging and developing countries and work hand in hand on climate-friendly transformation.

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On the security front, which has been the main obsession of Germany’s Africa policy: Germany needs to restructure and climate-proof its security policy. For there is no greater fuel of insecurity and displacement than the gradual and inexorable disappearance of livelihoods linked to the climate crisis.

Efforts to address security must directly address the loss and damage from the climate crisis while improving livelihoods. Focussing on this core existential crisis will therefore help Germany connect the dots on its apparent interests in Africa – especially security and displacement.

It is impossible to ignore the devastating effects of the climate emergency in Africa – a crisis Africans did not create and, perhaps because of that, do not have the resources to address. The crisis, however, also presents opportunities. It is an opportunity for African countries to recast their economies in ways that address the climate emergency while creating jobs, the key consideration for a continent of young people.

It is also an opportunity for Germany. As the largest economy in Europe, with a new government that seems intent on climate solutions, and which has made climate diplomacy a key part of its G7 Presidency, it is a chance to not merely support African countries’ efforts to address the climate emergency. It is also an opportunity to lead in climate diplomacy by providing a blueprint for how external actors can effectively partner with Africa.

Dr Olumide Abimbola is executive director of APRI – Africa Policy Research Institute, a Berlin-based think tank. He previously worked on trade and regional integration at the African Development Bank, and on natural resources governance at the GIZ.

The post Germany must bring African nations into its G7 ‘climate club’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

“We were swimming in the rivers, played football and other games on buffers,” reminisced Takele Getachew, a 58-year-old man.

But for the past few decades that has not been possible, as the water became more and more polluted due to urban development.

“I witnessed closely how the Ginfile and Kebena have gradually been polluted and become waste disposal sites and sewerage spillways,” Getachew lamented.

After decades of neglect, there is now some hope for the waterways. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s controversial Addis Ababa River Side Project, also known as the ‘Beautifying Sheger Project’, aims to clean up the rivers, making the city a model of green development in the process.

“I think the new riverside development project will save the rivers,” Getachew said, adding that they are a living memory of “past good times” and of the city’s “identity”.

The three-year project, expected to cost 29 billion birr ($900 million), aims to enhance the well-being of city dwellers by mitigating flooding and pollution through the creation of public spaces and parks, bicycle paths and walkways along the riverside.

But cleaning up Addis Ababa’s rivers comes with a human cost.

“The river was polluted and we were suffering floods during rainy season, but it is being cleaned now,’ said Asnakech Mesfin, 55, a mother of two who lives in an area known as the Sheraton expansion, an area affected by the development.

The project also runs through the densely populated villages known as Basha Wolde Chilot, Siga Mededa and Arogew Kera or generally Arat Killo.

The government “started demolishing our shelters without any warning’’, Asnakech said. “They send police here and demolished our shelters during holidays which led us to live on the streets for 4 months.’’

“The question is where shall we shelter? Any development should give priority for people first.”

The project starts from Mount Entoto to Akaki, covering 56km of green areas along the rivers, passing through the former Basha Wolde Chilot, in front of the national Parliament at Arat Kilo and the heavily populated Piassa in Addis Ababa’s centre.

The first phase of the project, running from Entoto to Bambis Bridge, is under construction with financial support the state-owned China Construction Company (CCCC), and is scheduled to be finished by May 2020. It is estimated to currently be about 55% complete.

It runs down to the Grand Menelik II Palace, through an area with villages like Asnakech’s. Now, there are just the place names remaining, but no residents.

Addis Ababa riverside development plan (Source: Mayor Office of Addis Ababa)

Not far from the project site, there are mud and plastic homes where poor residents still dwell. The few people left along the river are experiencing tough conditions, with huge lorries passing through villages and construction taking place around them.

Thousands fear displacement during the second phase of the project.

The development has been criticised for not respecting two of the 15 principles of sustainable development, agreed in 2012 at the Stakeholder Forum of the Rio 20+ meeting.

Principle 9 states that, “all citizens should have access to information concerning the environment, as well as the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes.”

And principle 5 says developments should ensure “individuals and societies are empowered to achieve positive social and environmental outcomes”.

Neither of these principles appears to have been followed.

Most of Asnakech’s village was demolished long ago. The residents were relocated to the outskirts of the city, paying for new government accommodation through a loan scheme.

“They told us immediately to leave the place. We would be happy if they informed us before’’, she said.

“There is no value just constructing buildings and developing green areas without due attention to livelihoods,” she said. “They are treating us like enemies.”

“The government has not visited us and discussed with us to find a solution. I have been suffering to support my son who is a grade 6 student here on the street,” Asnakech said.

The city government and prime minister’s office declined to comment.

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Addis isn’t the only one of Ethiopia’s cities to have faced critical waste management challenges and difficulties implementing and sustaining urban green infrastructure. But the problem is more complex in the capital.

Dr. Manaye Ewenetu, Associate Engineer at Symmetrys Structural and Civil Engineers, criticised the sustainability of the city’s green strategy but approved of the prime minister’s vision.

Ewenetu is concerned about two things – access to water and pollution. “There is already water stress in the city and will continue to get worse unless a proper demand and supply assessment is undertaken by the relevant authorities,” he said.

“As it is observed on the ground, most of the Addis Rivers are non-perennial rivers which mean they do not have flows for most of the year except during the winter period.’’

A detailed hydrological assessment should have been undertaken to establish the flow regime of the rivers in the city to ensure the flow of water in summer season, he said.

He also worries about pollution in the rivers. “At the moment dirty water from all residential and commercial properties including factories, schools, and hospitals is discharged into the rivers,’’ he said.

So while Addis Ababa’s River Side project is a genuine attempt to green a developing city, critics say it is still a long way from being a model of sustainable development.

This article was produced as part of an African reporting programme supported by Future Climate for Africa. See our editorial guidelines for what this means.

The post Addis Ababa riverside project gives priority to development over residents appeared first on Climate Home News.

On a video call hosted by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg and her “Fridays for Future” youth movement, they said African nations have a role to play even though global warming has been caused overwhelmingly by major industrialised nations.

Deforestation in Africa and local energy policies promoting fossil fuels were all adding to the crisis, said Makenna Muigai of Kenya.

“I urge African leaders and world leaders to take into consideration that all of us at the end of the day will be affected by climate change,” she said.

UN relocates biodiversity talks to Italy from China after coronavirus emergency

Ndoni Mcunu, an environmental scientist at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, said that African nations should make their economies more efficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Africa only contributes 5% of the greenhouse gases yet we are the most impacted,” she said. China, the United States and the European Union are the top emitters.

Among policy advice, Vanessa Nakate, 23, of Uganda urged a halt to construction of a pipeline to export Ugandan oil via Tanzania to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga.

“We need to keep the oil in the ground,” she said. She said that activists in Africa often felt ignored, both at home and abroad.

“The biggest threat to action in my country and in Africa is the fact that those who are trying as hard as possible to speak up are … not able to tell their stories,” she said, adding that some feared arrest if they took part in local protests about climate change.

Nakate won unwanted attention last week after she was cropped from a news agency photograph at a meeting of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. Her absence meant the image showed only white activists, including 17-year-old Thunberg.

Nakate said that the controversy about the photograph – subsequently reissued to include her – might end up helping. “I’m actually very optimistic about this. I believe it is going to change the stories of different climate activists in Africa,” she said.

Coronavirus side effect – Climate Weekly

Teenage activist Ayakha Melithafa of South Africa said it was difficult to galvanise local action on climate change when many people in Africa suffered crises, of poverty and unemployment.

“It’s hard to convince people in Africa to care about the climate crisis because they are facing so many socio-economic crises at the same time,” she said.

She called for better public education to show that climate change would exacerbate strains on water and food supplies.

Thunberg, named Time Magazine’s person of the year for 2019, said she wanted to focus on Africa by organising the call.

She said that everyone in power around the world needs “to start treating this crisis as a crisis.”

The post Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

Scientific evidence is the foundation of robust adaptation policies that tackle water management, energy and food security, the study says. Without it, the climate impacts that are already plunging Africa into a humanitarian crisis are poised to get much worse.

But patchy weather records, most of which lay abandoned in meteorological offices and are unlikely to ever be digitised, make the African climate system among the planet’s least understood.

#Marrakech mail: sign up here for your daily #COP22 update

The study, produced by the Future Climate For Africa initiative, a joint program of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), finds that while Africa is poised to get hotter and its weather more erratic, most government departments are only planning short term, therefore failing to respond to slow onset environmental changes.

“It is difficult to model through computers, which makes predictions of future rainfall under climate change challenging,” said John Marsham, one of the authors at the University of Leeds, in the UK.

Although scientists know that both dry spells and heavy rainfall are likely to increase, whether some regions will get wetter or drier remains unclear.

Marsham also said that poor funding and the fact that the data are rarely shared with the scientific community are deepening the crisis.

“Long term decisions that do not account for climate change risk serious negative impacts” Marsham said. “Water supply, irrigation and drainage infrastructure built now need to be designed for the water availability, water needs and flood occurrence of the coming decades, as well as the present.”

Countries are increasingly embracing preparedness, and initiatives for adaptation in agriculture often include climate risk in their agenda.

The Adaptation of African Agriculture, presented at the UN climate talks in Marrakech this week, is one of the programs that builds on research and scientific evidence to devise practical solutions.

It connects governments and farmers in fields such as soil management, agricultural water control, as well as risk management.

“Africa, long neglected, can no longer be ignored. Today, it is an active, respected partner in the debate on global governance,” said Moroccan King Mohammed VI at the launch of the initiative.

“Cooperation, which is already intense with many countries at the bilateral level, will be further expanded and revitalized.”

But to create a robust, long term climate response strategy, funding from developed countries needs to keep flowing.

Teresa Anderson, climate and resilience expert with ActionAid, said that every dollar invested in prevention and resilience saves seven dollars in humanitarian response. “But donor countries prefer to wait until the crisis is in the news before responding to it, by which time is too late to make a real impact.”

She said that rich nations should ramp up their financial contribution to climate response, and makes no concessions to the US President-elect who vowed to slash climate aid.

“No country lives in a bubble, in a world where this year was the hottest ever recorded and 400 million people were affected by drought there is no space for climate denialism. The American people need to be aware that they live in the rest of the world,” she said.

Lou Del Bello’s series of reports on Africa and climate change is funded by CDKN

The post Africa flying blind as continent tips into climate crisis appeared first on Climate Home News.

When the sun goes down, the rest of the city slowly lights up, but pockets of poverty such as the informal settlement where she lived for 16 years stay dark, save for the dull glow of kerosene lamps.

Now a solar engineer and entrepreneur, part of an ambitious program to revolutionise the participation of women in clean energy, Juma doesn’t forget what it feels like to do your homework to the flickering light of a lantern. “I want to make sure that everyone has at least some lighting at home,” she says.

Juma exudes optimism, often interrupting her story with an infectious laughter. Her big dream is to eradicate energy poverty in Kenya through the power of sunshine.

Kenya enjoys over 3,500 hours of sunlight every year, but despite booming energy demand the uptake of solar panels in Kenya remains low.The government’s development plan for the next 20 years foresees solar providing just 1% of the energy mix. For comparison, coal is expected to provide 9% of the total, while geothermal energy will account for 60%.

Researchers have put this down to poverty and general lack of public financial support, but that is only part of the story. Inadequate technical support to the households that choose to go solar is also a barrier.

In pictures: the energy poor of Africa’s biggest slum

The Women in Sustainable Energy and Entrepreneurship (WISEE) collective was founded to bring light where Kenya’s national grid doesn’t stretch. In partnership with Strathmore University and USAID, the program offers free training and mentoring for women who wish to start a hands-on career in the sector.

It also addresses a stark gender imbalance in solar engineering. After realising that poorly trained technicians were leading to a proliferation of dangerous and short-lived solar photovoltaic systems, the Kenyan government introduced a compulsory licence. In 2014, out of 257 licensed technicians serving the whole country, only six were women.

Yet in Kenya, women are the main custodians of their home’s energy system. “If something breaks they will be the first family members to be on it while the men are at work, so they should be able to figure out what is wrong,” says Tameezan wa Gathui, a sustainable energy practitioner and co-founder of WISEE.

“When you are a girl child in Kenya your tasks are very much clear cut: household, cooking, fetching water. The boys will help but ultimately they are the ones who get the opportunity to go to school.”

Things are changing and WISEE is expanding the options for women. Over a ten-day crash course, trainees learn to design a solar system according to the specific needs of each customer and troubleshoot it. They get a certificate and additional support if they wish to obtain the licence that will allow them to practice in the field.

We have given women the opportunity to be energy professionals and entreprenuers @JulieGichuru @CarolineMutoko pic.twitter.com/RoZgYugkf1

— WISEE (@wisee_015) December 2, 2015

“Lack of accredited technicians holds back solar penetration in Kenya,” says Izael Da Silva, Director of the Strathmore Energy Research Centre. “The few practitioners around tend to stick to the big urban centres, where it’s easier to do business.”

In rural areas, home to 77% of Kenya’s population, people are wary of buying solar panels without technical back-up. “This is rather obvious,” Da Silva wrote in The Conversation. “Would you buy a car if the closest mechanic was 200km away from you?”

Juma, who after attending the WISEE training ditched a career at a main energy distributor to start her own business, also finds that lack of trust prevents rural Kenyans from embracing PV.

“Top priority of my business model is to restore people’s faith in solar. If you travel in remote areas, so many will just point at a dead solar panel and say ‘solar doesn’t work’,” she says. “But often it’s just a matter of replacing a battery. Perhaps the system was badly designed, or poorly maintained. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

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She plans to launch a “Solar Doctor” project early next year, travelling around rural Kenya to collect and repair solar panels for free. “And when other members of communities realise that solar works, they will be encouraged to try too.”

To fund that service, Juma expects to make a profit from designing and installing solar systems for those who can afford them. She decided to go it alone rather than work for a bigger company because, she says: “If I work for a corporation the solution I offer will be dictated by someone else. Working for myself I can minimise my profits and benefit the customer more.”

The young entrepreneur has had to adjust her ambitions since taking the course 18 months ago, she laughingly admits: “Fresh after the training course, I decided I would install 1MW of capacity by the end of 2017. Well, that was unrealistic, but with my first three clients I am set to install 2kW of solar energy. It’s good to feel that I am moving somewhere.”

For now, Juma’s initiative may be just a drop in the sea, but it is part of a bigger movement that is tackling a key hurdle to the spread of clean energy in Kenya. Fostering a new generation of solar engineers will not only fill a country-wide technical gap, but will also prevent the growth of e-waste, guaranteeing longer life to solar systems and better value for money for the customers.

Lou Del Bello’s series of reports on Africa and climate change is funded by CDKN

The post Can this woman restore Kenya’s faith in solar power? appeared first on Climate Home News.