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Provocative populist posturing is standard fare for fossil fuel fanboys

Richard Worthington
By Richard Worthington
5 Sep 2024
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It is time to denounce the self-serving narratives of opportunists demanding – in the name of the poor – favourable finance to keep fossil fuel exploitation profitable.

Letting go of what might have been is always difficult, even when it is clear that an opportunity has passed us by, or lost any prospect of delivering on expectations.

An unhealthy attachment to anticipated revenues is probably the most powerful impediment to avoiding climate catastrophe, as investors in the fossil fuel industry prefer to risk future stranding of assets (for which they are requiring government backing, or “de-risking”) rather than countenance a planned phase-out of extractive profiteering.

This is pertinent to an announcement by the African Energy Chamber (AEC), the self-declared “Voice of Africa’s energy sector”, claiming to speak on behalf of all Africans and particularly the 600 million without electricity, as in the Moneyweb headline of 14 August 2024: “Energy chamber group plans lawsuit against western financiers – For modern-day oil and gas ‘apartheid’.”

Populist narrative


Provocative posturing with a populist narrative is standard fare for NJ Ayuk, sole spokesperson and chief executive of the AEC (essentially a consulting company with rich and powerful friends, operating as a non-profit), and this “plan” for vague allegations of unfair discrimination fits the mould perfectly, with no plaintiff or legal opinion mentioned, even as he claims it will be backed by some of the best law firms in the world and several African states.

This initiative calls for a broader push-back against energy investments in Africa, particularly for oil and gas extraction, being constrained in any way by consideration of their climate change impacts, or ESG objectives in general.

The supporting narrative of Western powers obstructing African development identifies climate change response as the means for keeping Africa subservient, thus dismissing interrogation of the role of the financial sector as a whole, within which Ayuk seeks to be a major player.

Just the promise of a legal challenge to “Western financiers” is sufficient to tap into legitimate discontent with the global political economy and enduring neo-colonial nature of the international financial architecture – a sense of injustice that the AEC is mobilising to pressure government decision-making.

As Ayuk told Intellinews: “African politicians need to come on board. They need to cut taxes, provide the right kind of incentives, and approve deals… Drill, baby, drill, is the way to go, and you’re going to be hearing a lot about that.”

Such posturing seeks to embolden the likes of our Gwede Mantashe – perhaps still anticipating a new PetroSA oil refinery, as well as the resurrection of Mossgas.

Africa Energy Week


Letting go of what might have been seems especially challenging for state-owned enterprises with their attendant aspirational industrialists. It will be interesting to see the extent of our new administration’s support for the Africa Energy Week the AEC is convening in Cape Town in November.

Most champions of fossil fuel investments in our region have embraced second-order denialism which pays lip service to climate science but denies either the need or our capability to limit planetary heating.

Denying that governments in sub-Saharan Africa have any real agency in the quest to avoid climate catastrophe is used to justify the short-term pursuit of revenue, regardless of the consequences for our collective life-support system.

A respected local energy expert recently remarked that the exit of TotalEnergies (and some others) from development of the oil and gas fields in deep waters some 170km off our south coast “has cost SA R80-billion”.

Such simplistic assertions reinforce the narrative that there is only cost and nothing to gain in foregoing the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, which in turn reinforces second-order denialism, or regarding climate change mitigation as somebody else’s responsibility.

Legal action


There is a more serious threat of legal action in support of oil and gas development, as the UK’s new Labour government considers the 13 or so projects that have received licenses and are expected to seek development consent from relevant authorities. Labour’s election pledge was of no new projects in the North Sea, which, taken literally, means these projects should not be approved.

According to an organisation tracking emissions-intensive projects: “A former senior official tells Carbon Brief that the government may now be ‘compelled’ to greenlight them due to the risk of legal action from oil and gas companies.”

If the Labour government is serious about its commitment to restore the UK’s role in climate leadership, it must stop these projects and be resolute in contesting any legal challenge.

NJ Ayuk regularly invokes Western hypocrisy on climate action and their ongoing oil and gas development as sufficient justification for Africa to try to emulate their development pathway – regardless of the consequences on the ground.

Hopefully, the UK government is sensitive to the wider implications of any failure to honour and defend their North Sea pledge, and their opportunity to set a positive international precedent.

Propaganda platform


Africa Energy Week is touted as the premier deal-making gathering for the energy sector but is also a propaganda platform for insisting that eliminating energy poverty requires extensive fossil fuel expansion – even if the necessary investment is premised on revenue from exports – and that any opposition thereto has nefarious motives.

With an assertively “pro-Africa” narrative of opportunity being denied, attempts to interrogate the full costs and benefits of oil and gas projects are dismissed as anti-development. 

We cannot avoid catastrophic climate change and monetise the fossil fuel resources in our region or elsewhere, even if the large historical emitters (SA is ranked 14th) were to double up their decarbonisation efforts – as acknowledged by the International Energy Agency.

It is time to denounce the self-serving narratives of opportunists demanding – in the name of the poor – favourable finance to keep fossil fuel exploitation profitable.

South Africa’s new administration seems to be adopting a more science-based and forward-looking approach: public acknowledgement of the need to revise the Gas Masterplan by the minister now responsible for energy is encouraging, as is recognition of the need for integrated energy planning that takes account of externalities.

Perhaps we can learn to let go of some of what might have been, were it not for the inconvenient truth of climate change. DM

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