Keeling Curve

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Climate Accountability Institute applies legal, regulatory, investor, and moral pressure on fossil fuel companies to decarbonize global energy supplies.

This particular project seeks the legal injunction against construction and operation of the proposed EACOP pipeline (with team members in Uganda, Kenya, and the United States) at the East Africa Court of Justice, increased pressure to deny external financing (with NGOs in Europe), and grassroots opposition to the project in Uganda, Tanzania, and France. CAI was commissioned to quantify the total value chain CO2 and methane emissions from pipeline construction to end use of refined petroleum products and to critique the EACOP Consortium's Environmental and Social Impact Assessment. CAI's analysis commenced in February 2021, report was submitted in July 2021, and an Affidavit was filed with East Africa Court of Justice (EACJ) in September 2021.

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The core objective of CAI's analysis is to quantify avoidable emissions from the denial of a construction permit (or proponents‚ failure to acquire financial backing from banks and other institutions), or reversing the Final Investment Decision made by TotalEnergies and CNOOC (in cooperation with the governments of Uganda and Tanzania) of this environmentally destructive project to bring crude oil to market that is already saturated with more fossil fuel reserves than the climate can absorb without causing dangerous climate change. CAI's role is to assess the technical adequacy of the project‚ emissions estimates provided in the Environmental and Social Impacts Assessment (ESIA; submitted by EACOP to the governments of Uganda & Tanzania). These sources included energy consumption (e.g., diesel used for graders, excavators, pipelaying equipment, worker camps, transportation of imported materials [~500,000 tons]) and emissions from the construction and operation of the proposed pipeline. More importantly, CAI was commissioned to quantify the broader emissions arising from the crude oil pipeline‚ purpose: to bring hundreds of millions of barrels of waxy crude oil from the oil fields at the shores of Lake Albert (in northwestern Uganda) to refineries and consumers in world markets. It is no longer tenable for an oil and gas company to obfuscate, deny, or pretend that they have no moral, financial, or (perhaps) legal responsibility for the climate harms caused by refining and delivering petroleum products to end users. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against major oil, gas, and coal companies in various jurisdictions for recovery of climate damages (*), jurists are being educated on the legal theories regarding climate damages and corporate liability, and banks are increasingly hesitant to risk financing capital- and carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects that may be stranded and unrecoverable. This is our leverage in the campaign to shut down this carbon-intensive energy infrastructure project.Another point of leverage is with TotalEnergies‚ management, insofar as the company has committed to become net zero by 2050 (**), has known for decades that their carbon fuels products caused climate harm (***), and is under pressure from shareholders, institutional investors, and NGOs to decarbonize their portfolio. Being the prime mover in bringing 850 million barrels (Mb) to market, thus adding 378 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) to the atmosphere, does not align with the Paris Agreement under the 1.5C pathway. Note that we are applying for the Keeling Prize for Climate Accountability Institute‚ work to quantify the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline‚ contribution to atmospheric CO2 emissions as a crucial component of this broader effort but not for the full legal and grassroots campaign spearheaded by organizations in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, with support from scientists and lawyers in the United States.

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CAI's analysis and contribution to the EACOP project is aimed first and foremost at preventing the construction of a major crude oil pipeline, in line with IEA's Net Zero by 2050 report (2021) that no more investment in new oil and natural gas projects" is needed.
Secondly, as supporting affidavits make clear, the construction and operation of the pipeline will harm farmers, communities, water quality in streams, rivers, and lakes, that residents, farmers, and pastoralists will not be fairly compensated for lands and property lost to EACOP along the pipeline route through Uganda and Tanzania.
While the overall objective is to preserve the global climate, and important local objective is to preserve the natural environment and the communities that would be impacted along the pipeline route.

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