The Caribbean, Pacific-European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly (CPA-EU) has made an amendment in one of its resolutions on climate change, which is being described as a greenlight for Uganda and Tanzania’s East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project.
The CPA-EU Assembly, which brings together an equal number of elected MPs from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and Members of the European Parliament, made changes to “Operative Clause 5” of its Resolution on the Global Challenges of Climate Change Cooperation for Adaptation and Migration.
The Resolution was passed ahead of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled for November 18th in Egypt, and initially called for a ban on all new oil exploration projects.
It read in part, “…achieving the 1.5 ° C target, requires that no new oil gases fields be approved, nor any new coal mine or extensions to existing ones.”
However, in the CPA-EU session held this week in Maputo, Mozambique, the MPs from around the world voted to make changes in the resolution, to allow a global “just transition” to renewable energy.
The parliament in the new amendment as such “acknowledged the importance of fair phase out and gradual transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, stressing that achieving the 1.5 ° C target requires the drastic scaling up of renewable energy and supporting a global just transition.”
The amendment, Tayebwa says was tabled on the floor on Wednesday by Tanzanian Deputy Speaker Hon. Musa Azzan Zungu and Hon. Edmund Hinkson of Barbados.
Hon Tayebwa described the vote as a “big win for EACOP”.
It comes nearly two months after the European Union Parliament passed a resolution on “violations of human rights in Uganda and Tanzania linked to investments in fossil fuels projects” in which they called for the suspension of the pipeline project in Uganda and Tanzania.
The EU decision was widely condemned by Uganda and Tanzania as “imperialist” and unfounded.
