COP27 fossil fuel lobbyists criticised as Africa energy debate simmers

COP27 fossil fuel lobbyists criticised as Africa energy debate simmers

SHARM EL-SHEIKH - A frican activists have called at the U.N. COP27 climate summit in Egypt for an end to expansion of fossil fuels on the continent, highlighting that the industry has left a large share of people still without electricity and mired in poverty.

Nigerian climate campaigner Friday Barilule Nbani - who is attending the talks for the first time - said his community in the Niger Delta wanted no more fossil fuel projects, which have left a litany of toxic oil spills and tainted water.

Nbani's appeal came on the anniversary of the death of his uncle, the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was one of nine men hanged in 1995 - after a flawed trial - for protesting against oil giant Shell's exploitation of the Niger Delta.

"The polluters in Nigeria should get out from this COP," Nbani, of environmental group GreenFaith Nigeria, said in an interview after a protest at the conference centre that called for fossil fuel firms to be excluded from U.N. climate summits.

"They are destroying the environment - and anything that destroys the environment destroys life, and we are dying in masses."

"They are the ones delaying (climate) action. They have their own agenda," he said,