Thread by @KristofTiteca

My latest for @Africanarguments, with Catherine Windey and @olivierabahati1: “Congo’s oil auction: foiling climate colonialism or filling the coffers?” (Long!) thread. africanarguments.org/2022/08/congo-… (1/N)

https://twitter.com/africaarguments/status/1562002393969135616

On 28-29 July, the #DRC government put up 30 oil and gas blocks up for auction; with many of them overlapping with protected areas in the world’s second-biggest rainforest including the #Virunga UNESCO World Heritage site.
greenpeace.org/africa/en/pres… (2/N)

Is there a real risk of oil drilling in these areas? We argue that this most probably is not the case, as the auction has two other aims: producing rents; and reclaiming its sovereignty, particulary in the environmental sector. africanarguments.org/2022/08/congo-… (3/N)

As my previous work has shown, the #DRC oil sector has for long been a major source of patronage and rent-extraction for the government. Crucially, rents are achieved by selling access to oil blocks, NOT by developing these. See e.g. this policy brief:
uantwerpen.be/en/research-gr…

E.g. around 2010, Congo’s oil ministry signed 34 MOUs, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars each, before tearing most of them up. The mostly unknown companies involved – some of which were conjured up by officials – were offered easy profits from promptly selling.. (5/N)

.. on their rights, many of which overlapped, at much higher prices. At no point in these exchanges was there any suggestion of developing the blocks. See our discussion paper: medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/con… (6/N)

There’s no indication this auction is different. With elections coming up next year, the government needs to show its capacity to “deliver” & access to income. Foreign aid is with increasingly stringent conditionalities or not arriving at all (7/N)

Oil offers a way out. Similarly, before the 2018 elections, there was similar activity, after years of inaction: contracts were extended or renewed, with talk of declassifying parts of #Virunga and #Salonga. This was understood as a search for cash. africanarguments.org/2018/07/congo-… (8/N)

And indeed, no oil production developments have been made since then: There has been no development in and of the existing blocks nor of any infrastructure necessary for exploration or extraction. (9/N)

Moreover, the fact that the government has opened up the current auction to carbon credit and cryptocurrency companies is a further indication that exploitation is not the eventual goal. ft.com/content/b10a31… (10/N)

As well as generating funds by selling access, the auction of the oil blocks might also be aimed at giving the government leverage to obtain more international climate finance and reclaim sovereignty over its forests. africanarguments.org/2022/08/congo-… (11/N)

Since 2009, the DRC has been engaged in the #REDD+ process. From 2015 to 2020, the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) invested $200 million in REDD+ in DRC. At COP26 in 2021,CAFI’s main donors signed a renewed ten-year agreement& $500 million to scale-up REDD+ in DRC (12/N)

Yet, research estimates that Central African countries will need over $350 billion to reach their Paris Climate Agreement contributions. DRC’s Environment Minister recalled that rich polluting countries have failed to meet their 2009 pledge of $100 billion/year to poor countries

Moreover, Congo Basin countries systematically receive less funding than the Southeast Asia and Amazon basins- which some research attributes to weak diplomacy capacity. The CAFI process has been frustratingly slow in spending its funding. observatoire-comifac.net/docs/policy_br… (14/N)

Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, DRC’s lead negotiator on climate issues, has emphasised how small the financial returns from the DRC’s climate and environmental services to the world are in comparison to potential benefits from oil exploitation. le-journal.net/lambassadeur-t… (15/N)

All this explains the increasingly difficult relationship between the environment ministry and REDD+ donors. In 2018, a ministry official accused the latter of not respecting Congolese laws and of “bringing an entire state to its knees”. (16/N)

The auction of oil blocks is therefore a way for the government to reclaim authority over its forest policies. Accepting bids from carbon market start-ups would allow the government to deal directly with investors& potentially increase its revenue compared to donor- projects(17/N

Does this mean it is impossible oil exploitation will happen? Not necessarily. In 2018 & 2020, the DRC allocated logging concessions covering an area the size of Denmark in breach of its own 20-year-old moratorium and REDD+ engagement with CAFI redd-monitor.org/2021/07/15/dem… (18/N)

There also is the tourism minister’s recent threat that #Virunga Park could be taken over by the military, replacing the current civilian (foreign) management. Many are concerned that such a move would facilitate the opening up of the park to drilling afriquemedia.tv/2022/07/21/la-…

CONCLUSION: The oil auction serves as a tool for the Congolese government to obtain access to funding and increase its leverage on the international stage.. africanarguments.org/2022/08/congo-…

..The US’ recent promise of additional funding for the Congo’s environmental projects and to organise elections already show the effectiveness of this. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… END