Case studies: A fair phasing out of fossil fuels for Africa

In September 2024, PWYP held a webinar looking at the experiences and lessons from PWYP’s African national coalitions working, in a way or another, to progressively reduce their country’s dependence on oil and gas, in a way that is fair to everyone. 

Charles Ofori, Adam Anthony and Enebi Opawula, PWYP members from Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, showed us that together, we can do a lot, even in the most challenging of contexts, for a fair and equitable phasing out of fossil fuels.

Watch their interventions below.

Ghana 

Ghana has been exploiting oil since 2010. Its Energy Transition Framework, launched at COP27 in 2022, relies on a huge continued dependence on gas, seen as a transition fuel. Charles Ofori, Policy Lead on Climate change and Energy transition at  African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) Ghana, explains how the organisation works to ensure the energy transition is seen as an opportunity and not a threat. They notably pushed the government to reduce gas flaring, highlighting that Ghana was losing 300 million USD with these flares. They stress how unadapted the infrastructure is to meet Ghana’s emission reduction targets. ACEP and partners also look at how African countries could cooperate within the African Continental Free Trade Area to build solar and photovoltaic value chains. 

Tanzania

Tanzania has the ambition to cut emissions by 35% by 2030. But the country still expects to get energy from coal and gas, and a massive gas project is being developed in the Southern part of the country, with Equinor and Shell being the biggest investors. Adam Antony explains the community-led advocacy facilitated by his organisation HakiRasilimali. It started with research to understand how local communities, which have been benefiting from Equinor and Shell for the past 10 years, think about the gas project and what it means for them. HakiRasilimali took the time to sit with communities, and talk about how extraction can impact their livelihood, and its effect on the lands and the ocean. They then facilitated a dialogue between communities and members of parliament (MPs). Communities didn’t talk about climate change and emissions: they talked about the very concrete impacts that the gas project has on their lives. This is a first step, but it is challenging. Not all MPs were moved by these testimonies. Tanzania’s share of the world’s CO2 emission is very small and it’s not a major polluter. Climate change is often seen as a Western agenda to keep Africa underdeveloped. There is a need to counter these narratives and explain that the effects of climate change are felt everywhere, mostly in Southern countries. 

Nigeria

Nigeria is an old crude oil producer. Oil and gas represent 5% of the country’s GDP, so the energy transition is a question of economic survival. The government’s position is to decarbonise its energy sector while at the same time, trying to maximise current revenues from fossil fuels. Enebi Opawula, Senior Research And Policy Analyst at BudgIT Nigeria, exposes the challenges that the energy transition poses, as the countries’ number one priority is often to ensure energy security, and this can outweigh sustainable development and climate change concerns. BudgtIT is pushing the government to be more transparent and to make pragmatic choices to serve a greener economy. There is notably a current gas expansion plan, but it’s not clear where revenues will be invested. BudgtIT is working to see how gas production and consumption can help decarbonisation, by dedicating revenues to develop greener energies. BudgtIT wants to make citizens better informed so that they can make autonomous decisions for their energy future and hold decision makers to account. They are doing research and analysis (notably of government budget and spending), and raising awareness among populations with accessible communications