Activists warn they’ll target banks and investors involved in supporting the controversial project.
(Bloomberg) — Standard Chartered Plc no longer intends to finance an oil pipeline in East Africa that’s been estimated to generate seven times more CO2 emissions each year than the entire country of Uganda.
A spokesman for the London-based bank said Friday that Standard Chartered “isn’t involved in the financing” of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline project, which is planned to carry oil 900 miles from the fields of western Uganda to the coast of Tanzania .
The announcement comes as a coalition of climate activists targets banks and insurance companies supporting the project. EACOP, as the pipeline is known, has become a cultural flashpoint similar to the Line 3 and Dakota Access pipelines in the US. Protestors warn that it threatens local wildlife populations, including lion and hippo habitats, and that it would displace communities and trigger a dangerous spike in emissions.
The pipeline, which according to analysts at Barclays Plc is budgeted at $5 billion, has emerged as a test for the finance industry’s appetite for backing fossil-fuel projects, as protestors target individual firms. Their pressure campaign has already secured numerous victories, with several European insurers pledging not to finance the pipeline.
Meanwhile, firms that get financially involved are being singled out by activists. Deutsche Bank AG was criticized last year for providing a revolving credit line to France’s TotalEnergies SE, which is developing a pipeline together with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.
Last year, the European Parliament urged the governments of Uganda and Tanzania to halt work on the pipeline and “put an end to the extractive activities in protected and sensitive ecosystems.” In response, Uganda’s deputy speaker of parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, called the EU resolution “the highest level of neo-colonialism and imperialism against the sovereignty of Uganda and Tanzania.”
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