#StopEACOP

Global Day of Action against Standard Bank, SMBC and Standard Chartered

The pressure on East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is growing. TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) are struggling to find funding. It is a key moment to ramp up the pressure on the companies’ financial allies and mobilise all over the world on the 22nd of February in front of their offices. Join the action.👇

The story

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) will devastate communities in Uganda and Tanzania and bring the world closer to climate disaster. Thanks to the international mobilization, 24 banks have already pulled out of its financing.

TotalEnergies is the major oil company behind EACOP. However, facing low levels of interest from lenders, Total needs support from its financial advisors such as Standard Bank and SMBC. They are now looking for allies such as Standard Chartered that has not announced withdrawing from the project.

These 3 banks have signed the Equator’s Principles, a baseline framework that ensures financial lending brings a positive impact on the people and the environment. EACOP does not respect it.

TotalEnergies wants to secure all EACOP financing before the end of March 2023. To stop EACOP from damaging the environment and displacing local communities, we are mobilizing online, on the street, and in front of banks’ offices backing EACOP around the world to call our their hypocrisy and ask: “Which side are you on?”

Add Your Name

Standard Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation:

Don’t finance the East African Crude Oil Pipeline

Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest lender, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) of Japan are reportedly about to finance a 1,443-kilometer crude oil pipeline through Uganda and Tanzania. If built, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) would be the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world and is expected to cause large-scale displacement of communities and pose grave risks to protected environments, water sources and wetlands in both Uganda and Tanzania.

The pipeline is a threat to the employment status and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people, and will likely lead to rights violations for communities along its route, including from resettlement. It will cross the Lake Victoria basin, where an oil spill could prove disastrous for the millions of people that rely on the lake’s watershed for drinking water and food production. And it threatens to open critical ecosystems including Murchison Falls National Park, a habitat for elephants, chimpanzees and much other wildlife, to oil extraction.

In addition, the emissions from burning the oil transported through the pipeline alone are estimated at 33 million tonnes of CO2 per year, at a time when the world’s scientists are telling us that new fossil fuel developments need to stop if we are to tackle the climate crisis.

Standard Bank, through its Ugandan subsidiary Stanbic, and SMBC are currently set to ignore these impacts and the opposition of local groups to proceed with raising a $2.5 billion loan for the project. But a strong outcry could stop them. The Ugandan government expects to sign a deal to proceed with the pipeline in the coming months, so we have to act quickly. Please sign the petition and call on the banks not to finance this project and instead focus its finance on green projects which will positively transform East Africa’s economies for future generations.

and 39 civil society organisations from Uganda, Tanzania, and the DRC who are not named due to security concerns. 

   

 

View the full petition text.

Dear Standard Bank, Stanbic and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation,

The East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline poses unacceptable risks to both the global climate and local people and nature. Oil exploration and development in the region has already been associated with human rights abuses and illegal resettlement, and the pipeline poses a high risk of further abuses. Relocation and loss of land from the pipeline threaten the employment and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. 

The pipeline will cross the Lake Victoria basin for a length of some 400 kilometres. This lake basin supports the direct livelihoods of more than 30 million people in the region, for whom an oil spill could prove disastrous. 

The climate impacts from burning the oil that the pipeline would transport will surpass the potential financial gains the host countries are expecting to generate, at a time when the world is heading for a climate crisis. There is no room in the world’s carbon budget for this kind of massive new oil infrastructure. Further, the project presents unacceptable risks to local people, natural ecosystems and wildlife and threatens to open up Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park to oil extraction.

Further, oil from the EACOP pipeline will not directly benefit local people but will be destined for export markets. Rather than bringing wealth, oil extraction in Africa has too often been associated with the ‘resource curse’ and extreme, intractable poverty - a fate which Uganda and Tanzania can still escape. We strongly urge Standard Bank, Stanbic and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation to publicly commit not to finance this project. 

These banks are currently ignoring the impacts of the pipeline and the opposition of local groups to the project. But a strong public outcry could stop them. Act now:

 

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Join us for the Global Day of Action against EACOP

Actions are being organised around the world in more than 10 countries on February 22:

Paris | London | Brussels | Tokyo | Sendai | Fukuoka | Johannesburg | Cape Town | New York | Toronto | Amsterdam | Frankfurt | Kinshasa
  1. Sign the petition to demand Standard Bank, SMBC and Standard Chartered to drop EACOP.
  2. Join one of the organised mobilisations near you on February 22.
  3. Organize a mobilisation in your area.

Who is resisting EACOP?

For years, local groups and communities from East Africa have been resisting EACOP and calling for alternatives to fossil fuels – often at great risk to themselves.

Despite the dangers, they continue to oppose the pipeline and have assembled an alliance of African and international organizations to help amplify their message and bring new allies – like you – to the StopEACOP campaign.

Why StopEACOP?

Picture of smiling woman and children. Image taken by Lambert Coleman / Les Amis de la Terre France

FOR PEOPLE

If completed, the pipeline will displace 100,000 people from their land and threaten the water 40 million people depend on. This pipeline is already having frightening impacts on human rights in the region.

Picture of male lion and two cubs in the grass

FOR NATURE

The pipeline will slice through some of the most ecologically diverse and wildlife-rich places – including Murchison Falls National Park which is home to some of the largest populations of elephants, giraffes, lions, and leopards.

Solar panel array on a renewable energy plant

FOR CLIMATE

The latest UN climate report says we cannot build any new oil and gas projects if we hope to keep global heating within 1.5 degrees. Governments should listen to local people – and honor their calls for clean, fair, safe, and 100% renewable energy.

What's new with the struggle against EACOP?

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