<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/10/dash-african-gas-wipe-out-congo-basin-rainforests>
"The area of land given over to oil and gas extraction in Africa is set to
quadruple, threatening to wipe out a third of the dense tropical forests in the
Congo basin and accelerate the climate breakdown, a report warns.
Almost 10% of the African continent is already covered by oil and gas
production fields, but this could expand to almost 38% if proposals for new
projects get the go-ahead – unleashing a huge carbon bomb into the atmosphere
that would severely undermine global climate action, according to mapping and
analysis by Rainforest Foundation UK and Earth Insight.
Fossil fuel extraction, deforestation and human rights violations often go hand
in hand, and in Africa 30% of oil and gas fields overlap with forests that
sustain tens of millions of people, and store water and capture carbon that
helps neutralise human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
A staggering 90% of the dense forests under threat from new fossil fuel
investments are in the Congo basin, the world’s second largest forest after the
Amazon. This equates to 64m hectares (158m acres) – an area twice the size of
Germany – which overlaps with 150 existing or planned oil and gas exploration
fields.
“Oil and gas expansion poses a stark threat to the Congo basin forest and its
millions of inhabitants least responsible for the climate crisis. Achieving
climate justice for them means polluting countries in the global north stepping
up to rapidly decarbonise their own economies and supporting rainforest
countries to transition to a low-carbon future,” said Joe Eisen, the executive
director of Rainforest Foundation UK.
The basin’s forests are spread over Cameroon, Central African Republic, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and
Gabon, a region with more than 150 distinct minority groups, according to the
report."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
