The Secretary-General, The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, will lead the Commonwealth delegation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai to call for accelerated action on the climate crisis in light of intensifying threats to small and vulnerable member countries. 

Scheduled from 30 November to 12 December 2023, the annual summit comes just months after Commonwealth environment ministers committed to accelerating climate action at their inaugural meeting, held alongside the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. 

The Secretary-General, who will deliver at least 20 speeches across the summit, will urge negotiators to deliver a transformative outcome at the summit. 

This includes accelerating efforts to implement national climate plans mandated under the Paris Agreement, using the findings of the ‘global stocktake’ report to increase ambition and action, and delivering an inclusive, operational Loss and Damage Fund. 

Secretary-General Patricia Scotland will officially open the Commonwealth Pavilion COP28, which will host about 40 events across the two weeks, demonstrating the Commonwealth’s ability to convene vital dialogues between governments, experts, businesses, youth leaders and civil society. 

She will also meet with leaders and ministers from Commonwealth member countries and across the international community, to advance progress on emissions, finance, adaptation, biodiversity, oceans, health, innovation and the green economy.  

‘No more delays’ 

Ahead of the summit, the Commonwealth Secretary-General said: 

“The worst predictions of climate change have become a daily reality. In the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable countries, fertile lands are turning to dust, wells are running dry, storms and floods are overwhelming communities, and the ocean is rising. 

“This represents not only a threat to the health, welfare and survival of millions of people, but to our collective stability and economic prospects. 

“Yet as climate change advances, the gap on emissions, finance and justice has widened, while the window for action continues to narrow. COP28 must close that gap. 

“Every day of delay makes life more dangerous, and makes climate action more complex, challenging and expensive. There can be no more delays, and no more excuses – this is the time for implementation.” 

“The health of us all and of our planet rests on a 1.5°C degree cap on global warming,” she added. “We cannot lose sight of that objective, and I implore leaders at COP28 to renew their determination to deliver a bright, resilient, sustainable common world – now and for generations to come.”  

During the summit, the Secretary-General will call for increased support for small and vulnerable states, highlighting that despite ambitious pledges, these countries are receiving limited funds to mitigate, adapt to and build resilience against the impacts of climate breakdown. 

She will also draw attention to the broader consequences of the climate crisis on economic growth, leading to high debt burdens, food insecurity, stressed resources, and impaired livelihoods for many of the 2.5 billion people living across the Commonwealth. 

Commonwealth response 

Secretary-General Scotland will inform delegates at COP28 about the Commonwealth’s programme, designed to assist its member countries – including 33 small states – in dealing with the challenges posed by the climate crisis. 

These include:

• the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, which has mobilised US $310 million in climate finance for 17 vulnerable Commonwealth countries, with an additional US $500 million in the pipeline;
• the Commonwealth Blue Charter, which is an agreement by all 56 member countries to actively co-operate to address shared ocean challenges;  

• the Commonwealth Living Lands Charter: A Call to Action, which commits Commonwealth countries to safeguard global land resources while taking coordinated action on climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable land management;  
• the Commonwealth Disaster Risk Finance Portal, which gives countries open, 24-hour hour access to key information on financing to better manage the impact of disasters; and 
• the Commonwealth Sustainable Energy Transition Agenda, which seeks to fast-track an inclusive, just, and equitable transition to low-carbon energy systems across the group.  

In light of 2023 being designated as the Commonwealth Year of Youth, the Commonwealth delegation will also host a series of events focused on promoting youth-led action on challenges posed by climate change. Please see the full schedule here.

The East African Community (EAC) has written South Sudan's $36 million annual membership debt owed to the regional bloc. President Salva Kiir Mayardit attributed the failure to pay to the implementation of the peace process back home.

Kiir, the new chairperson of the EAC, said that South Sudan strongly believes in the capabilities of the bloc to address the common challenges that face the region and Africa. He thanked the summit for waiving arrears owed to the bloc accrued by South Sudan over the years and disclosed that his country would henceforth remit its annual contributions on a timely basis.

Juba immediately cleared the outstanding $15.5 million and is currently the most up-to-date regarding payment of the annual fee. This now leaves Burundi as the most indebted member with $15.5 million, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - which has yet to remit any money since its admissions this year.

The 23rd Ordinary Meeting of Heads of State also approved the admission of the Federal Republic of Somalia as the eighth member of the bloc. The summit further designated the chairperson of the summit, Salva Kiir to agree with Somalia on when to sign the treaty of accession into the Community. 

The summit further directed Somalia to within six months after the signing of the treaty to deposit the instrument of ratification with the secretary general. They directed the Council of Ministers to develop a roadmap for the integration of Somalia into the Community and report progress to the next meeting of the summit. 

Speaking shortly after the summit admitted his country into the bloc, Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud described the decision as a historic one, adding that the move will be mutually beneficial for both Somalia and the EAC. 

President Mohamud said that Somalia brings to the bloc her rich culture, heritage and strategic location with 3,000 miles along the Indian Ocean coastline, adding that Somalia would create an environment conducive to trade and prosperity within its national borders. 

He said that Somalia belongs to EAC with all partner states linked to his country through historical, cultural and linguistic bonds, even as he added that Somalia’s borders would be bridges as opposed to barriers for trade. 

On the ongoing national consultations for the drafting of the Constitution of the EAC political confederation, the summit called upon Tanzania, Rwanda and DRC to conclude the consultations process by May 30, 2024.

On the Sustainable Financing Model for the Community, the summit agreed on a 65 per cent (equal contribution) and 35 per cent (assessed contributions) financing formula.

The summit further directed the Council of Ministers to pursue strategic spending rationalisation measures, institutional strengthening and strict sanctions for the defaulting partner states and report to the 24th summit.  

On the security situation in eastern DRC, President Kiir said that the solution to the crisis lies in negotiations between the government of DRC and the rebel groups operating in the area. He urged EAC Heads of State to remain committed to the Nairobi Process on the restoration of peace in eastern DRC. By URN/The Observer

KOCH – Concerns are mounting in Koch County, Unity State, as local health authorities spotlight a surge in deformities among children, pinpointing oil pollution stemming from exploration and extraction activities as the primary culprit.

Daniel Gatkuoth, Director of Koch County Hospital, voiced deep-seated concerns during an interview with Sudans Post on Monday, attributing the observed deformities in the community directly to oil pollution.

The hospital has documented 15 cases of deformities since 2019, all tragically resulting in fatalities, with seven females and eight males among the affected.

Gatkuoth stressed that all 15 cases were registered at Koch Hospital.

Despite appeals, Gatkuoth expressed disappointment that their requests for compensation from both the government and oil companies have yielded no tangible response or support.

He highlighted the persistent efforts made by the community in raising concerns with SPOC, the operating oil company in the area, regarding the lack of aid for those grappling with oil-related environmental issues.

“SPOC has been informed each time a case involving a deformed child is brought to the hospital, yet there has been no acknowledgment or compensation from them since 2019,” Gatkuoth elucidated.

Expressing frustration at the lack of action from authorities, Gatkuoth underscored the ongoing suffering within the community, encompassing fatalities, the proliferation of deformities among children, and even the demise of livestock.

“On behalf of the community, we implore the Ministry of Petroleum, the Council of States, and the Legislative Assembly to review existing laws and take decisive action to tackle this issue,” he urged.

Gatkuoth concluded with a poignant reflection on the original intent behind oil allocations, emphasizing the urgent need for these resources to benefit communities as intended, lest their mismanagement continue to pose significant concerns. - Sudans Post

As delegates arrive from all over the world in Dubai for COP28, Al Jazeera English has released an important two-part investigation into Uganda’s controversial oil development on the environmentally-fragile shore of Lake Albert and in Murchison Falls National Park, some of the most important areas of biodiversity in Africa.

Pipelines: at what cost in Uganda?

Construction has also just started on the world’s longest heated oil pipeline, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which will serve these oil developments – transporting Uganda’s thick waxy oil 1443km across Uganda and Tanzania for export to international markets from a new tanker terminal at Tanga, on the coast – itself an area of important marine biodiversity and a known whale migration route.  

The findings of this investigation are controversial, raising vital issues key to the debates at COP28 about how to ensure loss and damage funding, or reparations, for the developing countries of Global South; funding essential if they are to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, which impact them disproportionately and are created largely by emissions from the wealthy nations of the Global North.  

But the investigation also confronts uncomfortable debates about global inequality and the continuing role of the wealthy countries and corporations of the Global North in the exploitation of fossil fuels. It also asks how the nations and people of the Global South are supposed to respond to ongoing extractivism in their hemisphere.  

Looking at the projects in broad strokes

In the films:  

• Local activists accuse the Ugandan government and international oil companies – in particular French-based oil multinational TotalEnergies – of being complicit in the denial of human rights, failing to pay adequate compensation to Project-Affected People and producing deeply misleading figures about the true impact of the oil project and its associated pipeline on local people and  communities. The film features subsistence farmers and their families who have found themselves in the path of the development describing the disruption and damage they have suffered, while activists describe arrests, harassment, and even violence inflicted on those resisting the project.
• The producers look at the role played by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s President for nearly four decades, who once promised to ensure Uganda’s oil would benefit Ugandan people, not international oil majors – but now stands accused of being party to secret deals which critics fear will limit Uganda’s share of any profits from the oil and plunge the country yet deeper into debt as it seeks foreign loans to fund its share of the development costs. 
• Africa faces a new rush for its oil, with fossil fuel exploration going on in at least 45 of the 54 countries of the continent – a great deal of that by international oil corporations from the Global North. The film looks at the dilemma facing Uganda. The entire continent of Africa is responsible for just 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If the wealthy countries of the world fail to deliver on pledges and promises of support, who is to say Uganda should not be allowed to exploit its own oil? But given the power and resources of the oil giants, without whom Uganda could not extract that oil, is there any way Uganda can ensure it properly benefits from those resources? And even if it does, is that worth the cost of adding to the climate crisis so adversely affecting its people? 

Dickens Kamugisha, CEO of the Ugandan-based organisation the African Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), is in no doubt:  

It can’t remain a song that the global North has promised and has defaulted. What have we done  when they defaulted? Do we still allow the companies to come here and ravage the entire continent? Are we saying because we are too poor, we cannot say no? We cannot allow this.Government complicity

Uganda is landlocked and dependent on imported petroleum products – with a significant impact on the nation’s balance of payments. Commercially-viable oil fields were first discovered in 2006 extending from underneath Lake Albert up to the north of Murchison Falls National Park.

Key to Museveni’s vision was the creation of a domestic petrochemical industry with a Ugandan refinery at its heart; a refinery which Museveni believed could see Uganda creating and selling petroleum products across East Africa. For that reason he initially opposed suggestions of a huge pipeline which could transport the crude to foreign markets, via either Kenya or Tanzania, as he recalled in a speech to the 7th Uganda International Oil & Gas Summit last year: 

I asked my Total friends… Where are you taking our petrol. Pipeline for what? Here in East Africa, we have got energy needs. Why don’t you build a refinery and we supply ourselves? The pipeline was actually their  preferred option. Pipeline only…. to get back their money quickly. I said: ‘No, that would never happen in Uganda when I am here.’ 

But economic reality was to intervene. As Ugandan economist Abubaker Mayanja observes in the film, extracting oil is expensive:

Without the oil majors, it’s difficult to pull off a successful project. So, the fact that you have natural resources is not enough. You actually need the oil companies.

Anyone investing huge sums on the infrastructure to extract oil expects lucrative returns – and as quickly as possible. And that, explains Mayanja, left Uganda with little choice: 

If you go for the refinery only, then you have a much longer capital recovery period, so it becomes unviable  for them. And you had to think about the East Africa crude oil pipeline to sell crude.

Today, the refinery has still not been built. Several attempts to create an international joint venture to build and run the refinery have fallen through, but interviewed in the film, Gilbert Kamuntu, the Chief Commercial Officer of the state-owned Ugandan National Oil company, (UNOC), insists the government remains committed:  

If there have been previous challenges of potential joint venture partners looking at the project and not  being interested, what we can say right now is that we will either do it ourselves or we will get a joint venture  partner. We will do it with our own funds, or we will go into the market. What is not negotiable is that the  Uganda refinery will be developed and will be commissioned.

But while the refinery remains as a concept, EACOP the pipeline is already under construction – despite also struggling to find international funding.  

Selling out to foreign interests?

EACOP is a Joint Venture Company with its head office in the TotalEnergies building in London. TotalEnergies holds 62% of the shares, the Chinese National Oil company, CNOOC, holds 8% – and Uganda and Tanzania hold 15% each. The plan was to fund the project by a combination of equity and debt.

However, an international campaign calling on banks and insurers to boycott the project has seen almost 50 international funders and insurers back out, or make it clear they will not be involved. As a consequence the shareholders have  pledged to fund the entire project themselves should international funders not be found. But critics in Uganda warn that such an eventuality could see Uganda plunge even deeper into debt.  

In the film, UNOC’s Kamuntu Ernest Rubondo, Executive Director of the government-appointed regulator the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, and TotalEnergies all insist that the project remains viable, despite the reluctance of so many potential investors – and the likely mid and long term pressure on oil prices caused by the drive for a global transition to sustainable energy.

In an interview conducted in their corporate HQ in Paris, TotalEnergies’ spokesperson on the Uganda project Chieck-Omar Diallo tells the film-makers:  

We are definitely convinced that this project is viable. Why? Because the oil demand is increasing. And if we  do not launch new fields, new projects, we will not be able to satisfy this demand. It will allow us to  compensate for the depletion of the current fields. 

Diallo also rejects accusations that Project-Affected People have been badly treated and that the project will  have a negative impact on biodiversity in the area.  

Irreversible damage already caused

But Ugandan opponents of the project insist the development is already causing irreversible damage in the area and call upon the international community to come up with funding which will compensate for the damage caused by global warming, and allow the countries of the Global South to develop sustainably and mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis without resorting to the exploitation of fossil fuel resources which will make the problem worse.

Dickens Kamugisha of AFIEGO tells the film-makers:

I highly doubt that you are going to get better returns from oil that can compensate for the damage that is  happening to the world. It is our obligation to say: “You the North, you must stop it.” If we also say: “No let’s  have some oil, let’s make some money,” then we lose that moral standing. Source: Canary Worker's Co-op