A Johannesburg-based lobby group is working on plans to instigate class-action lawsuits

Since about 2020, mainly Western finance houses, citing climate change and ESG pressures, have been slowly withdrawing their support for new oil and gas projects in Africa.

A Johannesburg-based lobby group is working on plans to instigate class-action lawsuits against financial institutions that refuse to invest in African fossil fuel projects.

Since about 2020, mainly Western finance houses, citing climate change and ESG pressures, have been slowly withdrawing their support for new oil and gas projects in Africa.

NJ Ayuk, executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber (AEC) – a pro fossil fuel advocacy group – told Upstream: “ESG has become a new code word for discrimination against Africa and banks have championed this. We will fight it.”

He said the group will begin a legal push-back against what he described as "financial apartheid", while the chamber also believes African countries should not work with any financial institutions who do not support oil and gas activities on the continent.

“While we institute lawsuits against financiers that discriminate against out oil and gas industry, we will push African countries to boycott or refrain from working with international banks that discontinue investments and reject the African oil industry," he said.

“Financial institutions that discriminate against Africa’s oil and gas industry in the name of climate change are wrong and desperately need to change both their mindsets and actions on this finance apartheid.”

The same institutions that decline to fund African oil and gas activities, do finance gas developments in Europe, pointed out Ayuk.

“They have played a part in the demonisation of oil and gas (which) is not a constructive way forward. Ignoring the role that carbon-based fuels have played in driving human progress distorts the public debate.

“We cannot expect African nations – which together emitted seven times less CO2 than China last year, and four times less than the US, according to the Global Carbon Atlas – to undermine promising opportunities for economic development by simply aligning with the Western view of how to address carbon emissions,” he said.

Ayuk argued that “filing a class action lawsuit to end these discriminatory practices is the right thing to do”.

In an earlier statement issued last week, the AEC’s boss said: “As the international community moves to boycott investments in the African energy sector, African people and African development stand to suffer.

“The role of oil in Africa’s energy and economic future is apparent and, consequently, should be defended as Western elites move to disrupt African progress.”

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