Uganda’s oil and gas industry is a solution, not a problem, to our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In this installment of my series on the environment and social aspects of Ugandan oil and gas development, I specifically address concerns about Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from Uganda’s oil and gas projects.

Using facts and publicly available statistics, I demonstrate the glaring gaps and double standards displayed by sections of the international media and environmental activists protesting Uganda’s oil projects.

I show why mob injustice against Uganda’s oil projects, particularly protests against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) Project, is unfounded.

Global GHG issue

There is no doubt that the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere has been increasing since the 1900s, which is causing global climate change.

The sharp increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by post-World War II industrialisation has been of particular concern, resulting in an upward trend that has yet to be reversed.

GHGs are emitted primarily by human activities such as energy production and use, industrial processes and product use (IPPU), agriculture, forestry, and other land uses (AFOLU), and waste generation.

Globally, CO2 from the production and use of energy accounts for approximately 75% of all human-induced GHGs. As a result, international efforts to combat climate change have focused on the production and use of fossil fuels (crude oil, natural gas, and coal), the primary source of CO2 emissions.

Who are the world’s largest and smallest CO2 emitters?

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s website, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data, the United States and European Union bloc (including the United Kingdom, which will leave the bloc in 2020), which account for about 10% of the world’s population, were responsible for roughly a quarter (25%) of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes in 2014.

Ironically, it is from these countries that international environmental activists and the media are making the most “noise” about stopping Uganda’s oil projects.

(From the website of the United States Environmental Protection Agency)

On the contrary, Africa, the world’s second largest and second most populous continent, home to roughly 20% of the world’s population, accounts for only 3% of global CO2 emissions.

The bottom 100 least emitting countries, which include nearly all 54 African countries (with the exception of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt), account for less than 5% of global CO2 emissions.

As a result, Africa’s fossil fuel production and consumption are not to blame for the world’s rapid climate change.

Uganda’s emissions in 2015 were 90 million tons (mT) of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to the 2019 Uganda First Biennial Update Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (CO2e).

Agriculture, forestry, and other land uses dominate Uganda’s GHGs due to limited access to energy (energy poverty) and a significantly lower level of industrialisation (AFOLU). The AFOLU sector is responsible for roughly 86 percent of Uganda’s GHG emissions.

The entire energy sector, which includes transportation, electricity generation, and oil and gas exploration and production, accounts for only 10% of total emissions, with the transportation subsector accounting for approximately 66% of total energy sector emissions.

As a result, unlike developed countries, where the primary source of GHG emissions is the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity and industrial use, Uganda’s greatest opportunities for GHG reduction are in the AFOLU sector, not the energy sector.

If anything, we still have an issue with energy poverty as a country that needs to be addressed. In the United States, the average annual oil consumption per person is around 20 barrels.

It is approximately 0.2 barrels per year in Uganda. As a result, the average consumption per person in the United States is 100 times that of Uganda.

Uganda’s oil projects have been designed to have the smallest technological carbon footprint possible, and the projects are classified as “low emission.”

The CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions per barrel of oil for Uganda’s upstream and midstream projects are estimated to be between 20 and 45 kgCO2e. This is significantly lower than the global average of 70-100 kgCO2e.

The recoverable oil resources of Uganda are currently estimated to be around 1.4 billion barrels. Assuming an average of 30 kgCO2e per barrel, total emissions are estimated to be 42 mTCO2e over a 25-year production period, or 1.68mT per year.

In comparison, during the ten-year period between 2005 and 2015, when there was no oil production, Uganda’s GHG emissions nearly doubled from 53 to 90 mT. The increase was primarily caused by forest degradation and deforestation.

The 37mT increase over ten years is equivalent to an average of 3.7mT per year, which is more than double the 1.68mT increase expected from Uganda’s oil projects.

In my previous article, I stated that there is an apparent “environmental fashion” being driven by some activists that ignores the uniqueness of developing countries like Uganda and the African continent as a whole.

In 2020, the energy (including transportation) and industry sectors in the United States accounted for 76 percent of GHG emissions, fueled primarily by fossil fuels. In Uganda, however, these sectors account for only 10% of total GDP.

(From the website of the United States Environmental Protection Agency)

These statistics show that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the world’s climate change problem. In Uganda, for example, GHG emissions from industrial processes and products account for only 0.55 percent of total emissions.

Yes, we can decarbonize our industries and products to the greatest extent possible and implement clean development mechanisms, but as a developing country, this category of emissions is expected to rise as Uganda becomes more prosperous through industrialization.

Similarly, emissions from the energy sector are expected to rise as more Ugandans gain access to energy and our country gets closer to eliminating energy poverty.

Uganda, through the Climate Change Secretariat within the Ministry of Water and Environment, has developed and begun to implement nationally appropriate mitigation actions in order to achieve its fair share of a 25% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030. Priority actions include improving energy efficiency by replacing traditional cooking stoves with more efficient stoves.

This action alone is expected to result in a reduction of 17.4 mT CO2e over a 24-year period. Additional savings will be realized through the planned use of the country’s oil and gas resources to produce Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), a cleaner fuel.

The production of LPG from the country’s oil and gas resources, as well as its use in the country and the region, will significantly reduce Uganda’s reliance on wood fuel, which is responsible for massive deforestation.

Climate smart agriculture, forest restoration, vehicle fuel efficiency, and improved transportation systems are among the other priority Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions. These are the actions that our development partners should prioritize in order to help Uganda meet, if not exceed, its GHG emission reduction targets.

Uganda’s oil and gas resources will increase access to cleaner energy, eliminate emissions associated with petroleum product imports, provide alternative sources of livelihood and reduce reliance on environmentally degrading economic activities, and generate the revenue needed to invest in climate smart and clean development mechanisms.

As a result, in Uganda, the oil and gas industry is part of the solution, not the problem, in meeting GHG reduction targets.

It is therefore critical that Ugandans do not allow themselves to be used to demonize the country’s oil and gas projects while other countries continue to profit from them.

In my next article, I will address concerns about the energy transition and explain how oil and gas resources will continue to be important in the global energy mix for the foreseeable future and are critical to ensuring a smooth energy transition.