Governments should not lower environmental standards because of COVID-19 —OilwatchAfrica

African governments should not lower environmental standards, suspend environmental monitoring requirements or reduce environmental enforcement as part of response measures to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is part of the demands made by Oilwatch Africa at the end of its one-day virtual Africa Annual General Meeting (AGM) held this month.

Oilwatch Africa is a network resisting the impacts of fossil fuels industries on people’s lives and environments. The AGM had the theme: “We can’t breathe – Africa Choking on COVID and Fossil flames.”

The AGM was attended by participants from 11 African countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, DRC, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe.

According to the communique issued by Oilwatch Africa, the AGM surveyed the devastating impacts of fossil fuels on the continent, both through exploitation and combustion, punctuated by the recent oil spill off the shores of Mauritius.

The participants demanded that: “African governments should establish climate-resilient and just recovery models, to defend communities, stop destructive extraction and support agroecology, through their leading visionary organisations in civil society.

“The COVID-19 pandemic should not be used as a yardstick to dispense with workers, to oppress citizens, or to victimise activists across Africa.

“Government should not use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to pass developments, that will negatively affect the environment and impact upon community’s health and well-being, without proper and meaningful popular consultation.

“Government should not lower environmental standards, suspend environmental monitoring requirements or reduce environmental enforcement as part of response measures to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The communique added that “the impact of COVID-19 on the health and livelihoods of countries already adversely affected by fossil fuels exploitation should be assessed.

In such sites, it is clear that communities made vulnerable by such industries – for example when people near refineries or oil wells suffer asthma – are also more susceptible to COVID-19. And during national lockdowns, these communities are also more vulnerable than others. When local industries return to post-lockdown operations, the damages associated with pollution due to restarting wells and refineries is even greater than normal.

“A just transitioning away from fossil fuels and equitably phasing out coal, oil and gas extraction should be a fundamental part of the plan for African nations’ economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic.”

The communique concluded saying: “We now know we owe our continent a chance to heal the terrible state of economy-society-nature relations, so that COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases will cease, so that local ecologies recover, and so that climate catastrophe can be averted. We know we have consensus for these values from the rest of the continent, aside from a few corrupted souls. And we know we can and will prevail in bringing our beloved Africa to the necessary post-fossil phase of our individual and collective lives – but only with your guidance and involvement, dear African citizens. If we fail, then Black Lives Matter in the USA and Europe, but not in Africa?”

 

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