Ditch Dirty Development: Campaign Summary
The Ditch Dirty Development campaign aims to end public support for fossil fuel extraction and exploration and massively increase support for renewable energy.
Campaign summary
Solutions to climate change exist. Industrialised countries like the UK must drastically cut carbon emissions. We must end our addiction to fossil fuels — which can’t be done without ending our support for the fossil fuel industry.
In the developing world, renewable energy could provide both access to energy services for the millions who currently have no electricity, and set developing countries on a path to a low carbon economy. This is what the Ditch Dirty Development campaign is aiming for.
Development aid currently funds oil
Off shore oil platforms at sunset
iStockphoto.com/Dale Taylor
Development aid, earmarked for poverty reduction, is being used to fund large oil and gas extraction projects. Such projects contribute to climate change through the carbon emissions which result from burning the oil and gas over the lifetimes of the projects. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we cannot even afford to use all the oil and gas that is currently available. Opening up new sources sets us on a path to dangerous climate change.
The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) aims to reduce global poverty. Using development money to fund fossil fuel extraction contradicts this aim as climate change will hit the poorest and most vulnerable people in the poorest countries first and hardest. Fossil fuel extraction projects also have a history of negative impacts on host countries, communities and local environments.
A low carbon future
Micro wind turbine
S Windjue 2005
Rather than spending development aid on fossil fuel extraction, it should be targeted at low carbon development. Providing energy services to those who currently are without electricity is vital for poverty reduction. Small scale, decentralised provision of energy can be cost effective, efficient and environmentally sustainable. Using renewable energy can also reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports.
Facing the challenge of climate change requires decisive action and global leadership. People & Planet is calling on DFID and the UK Government to ditch dirty development and put all their political and economic weight behind a new energy strategy for a climate friendly future.
Campaign Demands:
People & Planet is calling on the Department for International Development (DFID) to produce an energy and climate change strategy, covering both bilateral and multilateral energy funding, which will:
First, ensure DFID’s activities actively contribute to mitigating climate change through global emissions reductions. To do this, DFID must:
phase out all support for fossil fuel extractive projects.
massively increase support for new renewable energy sources.
Second, increase access to energy in the developing world, by promoting and championing decentralised and low carbon forms of energy as appropriate.
The strategy must have specific, timebound targets and built in monitoring systems. DFID should report to Parliament on progress towards these targets on a regular basis.
Why fossil fuel extraction is bad for development
Climate injustice
Climate change will impact the poorest and most vulnerable first and hardest. According to the World Health Organisation, at least 150,000 people die each year as a direct result of global warming. As the impacts of climate change become more severe, we can expect to see more of the following:
- Water shortages, resulting from changing rainfall patterns and melting mountain glaciers.
- Food scarcity, particularly in areas affected by erratic and reduced rainfall. In developing countries, many communities are reliant on rain-fed agriculture, making them extremely vulnerable to changing weather patterns.
- Health impacts, as the range of diseases such as malaria increases, and declining water quality leads to increased prevalence of water borne diseases.
- Disasters and extreme weather, such as hurricanes and heatwaves.
- Increasing numbers of environmental refugees, forced to leave their homes as a result of drought, disasters or environmentally provoked conflict.
Case study: Chad-Cameroon Pipeline
Cost: US $3.7 billion
CO2 emissions: 445.9 million tons
The Chad-Cameroon pipeline was supposed to be a prototype for extractive industries, with a law ensuring oil revenues would be spent on poverty alleviation. In early 2006 the World Bank froze funds to Chad after the government decided to re-allocate oil revenues to their security budget. Funding was resumed in April 2006, despite civil society fears that the Chadian government had not changed its position.
This project will result in massive emissions as oil exported is consumed in industrial countries. It will benefit the multinational oil companies involved, led by Exxon Mobil, and the ruling elites in Chad and Cameroon. Despite good intentions, it appears unlikely to benefit the poor.
Fossil fuel extraction contributes to climate change
Oil fire in the Niger Delta
Stakeholder Democracy Network
Oil and gas drilling projects funded by international financial institutions since 1992 will be responsible for 8.5 billion tons of carbon equivalent over the course of their lifetimes. This is equivalent to more than 50 years of UK emissions at current levels.
As oil fields and pipelines operate for decades, new fossil fuel extraction projects funded today will produce the oil and gas of the future. Economically, projects like these are only viable if all the oil or gas is extracted and sold. Funding them therefore creates economic incentives to continue to use fossil fuels in future decades, undermining attempts to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions.
Funding fossil fuels also has an impact on the availability of funds for other sources of energy. It perpetuates the current dominance of fossil fuels and maintains their relative competitiveness. Fossil fuels have the benefit of years of subsidies and support. To compete, renewable energy now needs similar support and promotion.
Nigerian Oil Statistics
- Nigeria is the biggest oil exporter in Africa.
- Percentage of government revenues from crude oil: 80%
- 70% of the Nigerian people live on less than a dollar a day.
- Nigeria is ranked at 152 out of 175 nations in the UN´s Human Development Index.
- There are over 1,000 deaths in armed conflict every year in the Niger Delta.
- 2.5 million barrels of oil were spilt in the Delta between 1976 and 1998.
- Since 1965, GDP per capita has remained static
- In the same time oil revenues have increased 10 times
- Nigeria is the second most corrupt country in the world.
The `resource curse´
For developing countries, valuable natural resources such as oil and gas should be an economic asset, bringing much needed revenue into the country through exporting fuel to energy hungry industrial countries such as the UK. However, over the past few decades, oil and gas resources have more often proved to be a curse rather than a blessing.
Economically, countries dependent on oil and gas exports have, over the long term, had less success than more diverse economies. Such countries also tend to have higher debt burdens, poor governance, high levels of corruption and a tendency towards militarism and authoritarianism. Local communities close to oil and gas infrastructure suffer serious environmental pollution and have often been subject to human rights violations.
The alternatives: energy for all as part of a low carbon future
Funding fossil fuel extraction exacerbates climate change and is bad for development. Instead, public money should be used to kick start sustainable low carbon development. Such development must balance the economic and social needs of people in developing countries, with the global necessity of cutting carbon emissions.
Access to energy for the poor
Over 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity, and 2.4 billion are reliant on wood, charcoal and dung for cooking and heating. This has serious detrimental effects on human development. Over 1.5 billion people die annually as a result of exposure to smoke in the home. Valuable time is wasted collecting fuel, which particularly impacts on women and girls. Electricity can open up new opportunities, such as studying at night, improved health facilities and more efficient food production and processing.
Current funding is not succeeding in increasing access to energy. In Africa, the proportion of the population with access to electricity has actually decreased over the past 10 years.
The benefits of decentralised energy
Conventional approaches to increasing access to energy rely on large power stations and a centralised grid system. Decentralised energy systems involve the generation of power close to the point of use. Such systems avoid the wastage associated with transmission over long distance, and do not require the same costly national infrastructure as grid systems.
Decentralised energy is also extremely well suited to renewable energy and more efficient use of fossil fuels (such as combined heat and power where the energy wasted in conventional power stations is used for local heating purposes). Additionally, it can benefit local economies and enable local communities to have greater ownership over energy production and consumption.
Increasing support for renewable energy
Low carbon development will involve a diversity of energy sources. In this future energy mix, renewables must play a central role. Because renewables currently only provide a small part of the energy we use, and because there is less experience of using and disseminating renewable energy, there is a glaring need for public support for renewables.
In developing countries, as per capita carbon emissions are very low, renewable energy can be seen as a low priority. However, increasing the use of renewable energy can decrease dependence on fossil fuel imports, with massive potential national economic benefits. Internationally, climate change is a priority. Promoting renewable energy can move us towards a low carbon, climate friendly future, benefit the national economies of developing countries and increase access to energy in poor communities. There is no excuse for continuing to favour out-dated fossil fuels.
Fueling the future: development aid and energy
DFID and the World Bank
The UK is one of the top five shareholders in the World Bank, contributing around 5% of total World Bank funds. This entitles it to appoint its own Executive Director to the Board. The UK is represented at the Bank by DFID and the Treasury. DFID therefore has significant influence over World Bank funding decisions and policy.
DFID have used this position to influence policy on fossil fuel extraction, opposing a proposed phase out of funding for oil. DFID continue to argue that oil and gas extraction can have a positive impact on development, despite the fact that the World Bank have been unable to put forward a single example of an oil project that had alleviated poverty.
World Bank Energy Funding
World Bank funding for energy is currently increasing, as is their support for oil and gas extraction projects. Funding for renewables, however, is decreasing as a proportion of the whole. In the year ending in June 2006 the World Bank spent five times more on fossil fuel extraction than on the renewable energy sources which will help to tackle climate change.
DFID needs a coherent approach to climate change
In their recent White Paper, DFID state that “climate change poses the most serious long term threat to development and the Millennium Development Goals”. Despite this, they continue to support climate changing fossil fuel projects through the World Bank and other international financial institutions, have no targets to increase support for renewable energy, have no targets to increase access to energy in developing countries and do not monitor the impacts of their funding on the climate.
The Ditch Dirty Development campaign aims to highlight these contradictions in DFID’s approach. DFID should be forward thinking and prioritise new forms of low carbon development to help developing countries end poverty without contributing to climate change.
