By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Many environmental activists across the globe has slammed the new international energy strategy released by the European Union.
A new strategy was released on Wednesday, May 18th by the European Union, callling on the United States, Canada, African and Gulf countries to open up new gas supplies to displace supplies of Russian oil and gas.
According to the activists the strategy failed to address the impacts the energy crisis, the global impacts of the war in Ukraine, and Western sanctions have on developing countries dependent on oil and gas imports. It also contravenes the EU’s commitments laid out in the REpowerEU strategy to reduce its gas demand by 30% by 2030.
Landry Ninteretse from 350.org said, “It is entirely reckless that the EU calls on African nations to open up more gas supplies to feed their fossil fuel addiction. African countries are faced with a multitude of interlinked and mutually reinforcing crises — climate impacts, water scarcity, energy poverty, insufficient food production, post-covid impacts — leaving millions of people vulnerable and unable to meet their basic needs.”
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation and Oilwatch Africa, said, “Now is the time for renewables to be at the core of global energy policies. Ukraine is not just a wake-up call, it is an eye-opener in the heart of Europe. Instead, the continent, like a drug addict, is turning to Africa in what simply amounts to a rash, stubborn, mindless, colonial pursuit of profit at the expense of people of Africa, the continent and the entire planet. We need to be thinking beyond the bottom line of those who have brought us to the brink of catastrophe. Anything less will be nothing other than willful climate and ecological crimes.”
Collin Rees from Oil Change International also noted that, “The EU’s new energy strategy is woefully inadequate, and would lock in decades’ more extraction of deadly gas and oil. Driving new gas infrastructure development in the United States and across the world while deepening its own dependence on volatile fossil fuels is the last thing Europe should be doing. Europe needs a full-scale mobilization toexpand clean, renewable energy and encourage other countries to do the same, and this new plan badly misses the mark.”
Speaking further, the Coordinator for stand with Ukraine campaign, Svitlana Romanko , added: “Russia’s outrageous war against Ukraine fully exposed Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports and lack of political willpower to lead the green revolution globally. The European oil and gas-led energy security has failed, and we have to acknowledge this.
“The EU is poignantly slow in banning and phasing out Russian fossil fuels and every day still sending about one billion euros to feed Putin’s war machine but far more active in mobilizing oil and gas reserves worldwide. This severely undermines the EU global leadership in green transformation declared by the EU Green Deal and brings us back to the dark times of fossil fueled colonialism.”
