At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, almost all the world’s countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. But, one year later at COP29, Namibia has been looking for oil and gas investments at its country pavilion in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.
The state-run Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) organised side events with a focus on “producing the most sustainable barrel of crude oil” and another on “how to green Namibia via industrialisation and oil and gas value chain”.
The pavilion displayed its 2024-2025 investment opportunity catalogue which advocates for developing the country’s nascent oil and gas sector.
Namibia’s pavilion at COP29 (Photo: Vivian Chime)
In the foreword, the country’s minister of industrialisation and trade, Lucia Lipumbu, described the catalogue as being “reflective” of the southern African country’s “vision for the future”, adding that its economic potential has never been more promising, in light of major developments – “particularly in the oil and gas and renewable energy spaces”
Will GDP double?
In the oil and gas section of the catalogue, the country claims that current exploration for petroleum in four frontier basins – Namibe, Walvis, Lüderitz and Orange – will lead to a doubling of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2040, if found to be commercially viable.
It also states that the country is partnering with Norwegian company BW Energy to develop the Kudu Gas fields, adding that the gas reserves “have the potential to transform Namibia into a net electricity exporter through gas-to-power production”.
Additionally, the government says that offshore oil exploration along its 1,600km-long coastline has seen a “significant uptick in interest”, with oil majors such as TotalEnergies, Shell, Galp and QatarEnergy actively pursuing interests along the coastline.
A wall display at Namibia’s pavilion at COP29 (Photo: Vivian Chime)
Vance Culbert, senior policy advisor in the energy program at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), said he doubted that Namibia’s GDP would double. The nature of investment deals requires “the payback of investments to the companies” – and thus will make it difficult for the country to accrue any short-term benefits, especially in the face of the transition, he said.
Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa holds similar views, telling Climate Home that while ‘increased GDP’ can be a tempting tagline, the reality behind that GDP number is that fossil fuels orient the economy toward extractive industries which privilege profit and foreign markets over delivering real prosperity and development for ordinary Namibians.
Resource curse
Furthermore, the Namibian government states in its investment catalogue that it is “cognisant of the potential pitfalls that are associated with discoveries of valuable natural resources”, adding that it has drawn lessons from the experiences of oil-producing countries and will effectively manage the new sector to ensure economic benefits for all Namibians.
Fadhel Kaboub, a senior advisor with Power Shift Africa, is doubtful that Namibia can succeed where others have failed. He said that if oil and gas were a source of development and prosperity, Nigeria and Angola “would be economic powerhouses delivering aid and development to their neighbours”.
Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people, continues to be energy poor despite having the second largest oil and gas reserve in Africa. The country has struggled to use its abundant natural resources to benefit its people and drive economic development, and is instead beset by poverty and corruption.
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The Niger Delta region of the country where most of the oil drilling takes place has suffered years of environmental degradation, and pollution to its waters and farmlands, leaving its people poor and facing health problems.
Kaboub said Namibia risks “falling into the same trap” – and this would have devastating impacts on the environment and people, bringing no economic development.
Ina-Maria Shikongo, a Namibian climate activist, said these impacts are already been felt. She said the drilling is affecting water bodies and threatening access to water for communities. She added that the seismic disturbance caused by the companies has also affected farming fields and cracking homes.
Shikongo, who said she fears the outcome of these activities, warned “this will end up impacting over a million people across four borders who rely on the Okavango water including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia”.
Stranded assets
With the global call for a transition away from fossil fuels, experts warn that Namibia risks having useless stranded assets when oil markets shrink. “The rest of the world is decarbonising rapidly,” Kaboub told Climate Home, adding that demand for fossil fuels will decline in the next couple of decades.
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Countries like Nigeria are beginning to see multinational oil companies like Shell decommission their onshore operations and selling off their business.
Shikongo worries that other countries are making strides at COP29 to advance their clean transition, but her country “brings more fossil fuel lobbyists to the conference to drive their oil and gas agenda”.
Karabo Mokgonyana, renewable energy campaigner at Power Shift Africa, said there is a need to sell the economic benefits of renewables to African leaders, adding that justifying the transition because of climate change will not work. She said “more convincing economic models” are necessary to get the buy-in of countries.
“No manna from heaven”
Kaboub and Adow suggested Namibia should use its critical minerals instead to leapfrog into the energy system of the future.
But Harsen Nyambe, the African Union Commission’s director of sustainable environment and blue economy, questioned this possibility. He said countries will not wait for “manna to fall from heaven” but will continue to use their available resources until an alternative is provided.
One major limitation is that investors see clean energy on the continent as risky – but if this perception changes, Africa can make the switch to clean energy, he added.
(Reporting by Vivian Chime, editing by Joe Lo)
The post Namibia uses COP29 climate summit to push for oil and gas investments appeared first on Climate Home News.
Namibia uses COP29 climate summit to push for oil and gas investments
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The fourth installment in our special Earth Day series
When the sciences and the humanities; democracy and ecology, are all under common and increasing attack, the efforts of independent experts and researchers matter more than ever.
David Ritter
So often in life, our most authentic moments of joy are the result of years of shared effort, and the culmination of a kind of deep faith in what is possible.
A few weeks ago, I had the honour of being in Canberra, along with some fellow environmentalists and scientists, to witness the enactment of the High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 by our federal parliament.
This was the moment that the Global Ocean Treaty—one of the most significant environmental agreements of our time—was given force through a domestic Australian law.
If you are part of the great Greenpeace family, you will know exactly why this was such a huge deal. The high seas make up around 60 per cent of the Earth’s surface and for too long, they have been subjected to open plunder. Now, for the first time in human history, there is an international instrument that enables the creation of massive high seas sanctuaries within which the ocean can be protected. This is a monumental collective achievement by Greenpeace and all the other groups who have campaigned for high seas marine sanctuaries for many years.
But as momentous as the ratification was, the parliamentary proceedings were distinctly lacking in drama or fanfare–so much so, that Labor MP backbencher Renee Coffey felt the need to gesture to those of us in the gallery with a grin, to indicate that the process was over and done.
The modesty of the moment had me thinking about the decades of quiet dedication by many hands that are invariably required to achieve great social change. In particular, I found myself thinking about researchers. So much of the expert academic work that underpins achievements like the Global Ocean Treaty is slow, painstaking, solitary—and often out of sight.
I think of the persistence and tenacity of researchers as an expression of love, founded in an authentic sense of wonder and curiosity about the world—and frequently linked to a deep ethical desire to protect that source of wonderment.
In 2007, one of the very first things I was given to read after starting with Greenpeace as an oceans campaigner in London was a report entitled Roadmap to Recovery: A global network of marine reserves. Specific physical sensations can tend to stick in the mind from periods of personally significant transitions, and the tactile reminiscence of holding the thin cardboard of the modest grey cover of that report is deeply embedded in my memory. I suspect I still even have that original copy in a box somewhere.
Written by a team of scientists led by Professor Callum Roberts, a marine conservation biologist from the University of York, the Roadmap provided the first scientifically informed vision of a large-scale global network of high seas marine sanctuaries, protecting the world’s oceans at scale. Of course, twenty years ago, this idea felt more like utopian science fiction, because there was no Global Oceans Treaty. But what seemed fanciful at the start of this century is now possible-–and I have every confidence the creation of large scale high seas marine sanctuaries will now happen through the application of ongoing campaigning effort—but we would never have gotten this far without the dedication of researchers, driven by their love of the oceans. And now here we are, with the ability for humanity to legally protect the high seas for the first time.
Campaigning and research so often work hand in hand like this: the one identifying the need and the solutions; the other driving the change. Because in a world of powerful vested interests, good science alone doesn’t shift decision makers—that takes activism and campaigning—but equally, there must be a basis of evidence and reason on which to build our public advocacy.
So, I want to take a moment to think with love and appreciation for everyone who has contributed to making this possible. I’ve never met the team of scientists who authored the original Roadmap, so belatedly but sincerely, then, to Leanne Mason, Julie P. Hawkins, Elizabeth Masden, Gwilym Rowlands, Jenny Storey and Anna Swift—and to every other researcher and scientist who has been involved in demonstrating why the Global Oceans Treaty has been so badly needed over the years—thank you for your commitment and devotion.
And to everyone out there who continues to believe that evidence and truth matter, and that our magnificent, fragile world deserves our respectful curiosity and study as an expression of our awe and enchantment, thank you for your conscientiousness.
When the sciences and the humanities; democracy and ecology, are all under common and increasing attack, the efforts of independent experts and researchers matter more than ever. You have Greenpeace’s deepest gratitude. Every day, we build on the foundations of your work and dedication. Thank you.
Q & A
I have been asked several times in recent weeks what the ongoing war means for the renewable energy transition in Australia.
While some corners of the fossil fuel lobby and the politicians captured by these vested interests have been very quick to use this crisis to call for more oil exploration and gas pipelines, the reality is that the current energy crisis has revealed the commonsense case for renewable energy.
As many, including climate and energy minister Chris Bowen have noted, renewable energy is affordable, inexhaustible, and sovereign—its supply cannot be blocked by warmongers or conflict. People intuitively know this; it’s why sales of electric cars have climbed to an all-time high, it’s why interest in rooftop solar and batteries has skyrocketed in recent months.
The reality is that oil and gas are to blame for much of the cost-of-living pain we’re feeling right now; fossil fuels are the disease, not the cure. If Australia were further along in our renewable energy transition and EV uptake, we would be much better insulated from petrol and gas price shocks and supply chain disruptions.
Yes, we need short-term solutions to ease the very real cost-of-living pressures that Australian communities and workers are facing as a result of fuel shortages. While replacement supplies is no doubt a valid step for now—Greenpeace is also backing taxes on the war profits of gas corporations to fund relief measures for Australians—in the long term, we will only get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel dependency and price volatility if we break free from fossil fuels and accelerate progress towards an energy system built on 100% renewable energy, backed by storage.
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