Most Ugandans whose land and livelihoods were affected by the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) are dissatisfied with training programmes provided by developers which were designed to stop them being left worse off, a survey has found.
The Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) asked 246 people in seven communities affected by the project for their views on the developers Resettlement Action Plan (RAP).
It found that while most affected households have received some form of support, most were dissatisfied with the quality of food security programmes and training on alternative vocations and financial literacy.
Dickens Kamugisha, AFIEGO’s CEO, said that while the Ugandan government claims it is developing the oil sector to create lasting value for everyone, this study shows that this is not the case especially for the people that were displaced for the project.
“They lost their land, were under-compensated and now an inadequate livelihood restoration programme is being implemented. Instead of creating lasting value for the project-affected people, the government and the EACOP company could create lasting poverty for the people”, he added.
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EACOP is being built by a coalition led by the French company Total, along with China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation and Uganda and Tanzania’s state-owned oil companies.
The 1,400 km pipeline will take oil from Uganda’s Tilenga and Kingfisher oil fields through Tanzania to the East African coast, where the oil can be put on ships and exported.
Inadequate training
Nearly four-in-five of those surveyed described vocational training programmes, designed to give displaced people new professions like bakers, welders and soap makers, as inadequate. They cited short training periods, absentee trainers and limited hands-on learning.
One participant said he was trained in catering for four months in 2024. “I did not understand what I was taught. We were not learning most of the time”, he said.
The young man said that he only cooked once in the four months and that trainers told them that they would be sent home if they complained.
The financial literacy programme, aimed at training people to use their compensation wisely, was also described as inadequate by nearly four-fifths.
They said the training was only one day and was conducted by a commercial bank, which pushed them to open bank accounts rather than improving their money management practices.
“They were interested in business, and not in people learning”, one woman said, “no wonder when people got money, some married more women. The compensation was also too little!”
Not enough food
Those who were physically displaced by the pipeline or who lost more than a fifth of their land to it were supposed to be entitled to food assistance for up to a year or more.
While three-quarters of respondents received some food assistance, just a third said it was adequate. They complained that they did not understand why some people were getting food and others not.
There were also complaints about the quantity of beans, rice, cooking oil and salt provided, particularly from those with big families. One woman said her family of 30 used up the 4 kg of rice and beans in one meal.
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Lenders including Afreximbank are backing Uganda’s EACOP project, while publicly talking up their support for a just energy transition.
An agricultural recovery programme aimed to help people transition but, while many confirmed receiving seeds, seedlings or fertilisers, they complained that the seeds were poor quality and distributed too late – after the rains – for crops to grow.
In Kyotera District, one participant recounted receiving 70 coffee seedlings, of which only 20 survived. “We were given very young coffee seedlings. They were also poor quality with some having no roots,” the participant said. “I watered those coffee seedlings, but they did not grow. They were poor quality!”
Some of the affected communities also complained about not getting the livelihood options they wanted, adding that those who wanted livestock were given seeds instead because they did not have a building to house the livestock.
On the other hand, the survey found that about two-thirds of affected people were satisfied with the distance between their homes and the pipeline. The third who were not satisfied said they feared accidents like oil spills and noise and dust pollution as the pipeline is built.
“I fear for my life,” said one man in Hoima, “the pipeline can burst, spill and affect us. We have also been told that the pipeline will be heated. The heat from the pipeline could affect our soils”.
The post Ugandans living near new oil pipeline let down by compensation programmes appeared first on Climate Home News.
Ugandans living near new oil pipeline let down by compensation programmes
The UK is no longer the top contributor to the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund (GCF), after the government announced that it only intends to honour half of its most recent pledge.
Amid wider cuts to its climate aid for developing countries, the UK informed the GCF in May that it will reduce its commitment for the 2024-27 period to £815m ($1.1bn).
In doing so, the Labour government is drastically cutting a Conservative pledge of £1.62bn ($2.16bn), hailed by former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s government as “the biggest single funding commitment the UK has made to help the world tackle climate change”.
This “record” pledge also meant the UK became the top GCF funder, after the Trump administration withdrew $4bn in pledged US funds in 2025.
Now, the UK follows the US in becoming the second major donor to cancel substantial funding, leaving aid experts concerned that other developed countries will follow suit.
As the chart below shows, the UK’s total past and promised contributions to the GCF have now dropped below those of Germany, France and Japan.
The GCF is the largest dedicated UN climate fund and is seen as a vital way of raising grant-based climate finance for developing countries. It oversees more than $20bn worth of funding across 354 projects and programmes.
Developed countries, such as the UK, are obliged under the Paris Agreement to provide climate finance. One of the main ways to do this is through specialised climate funds, such as the GCF.
However, despite countries committing to increase their climate finance over time, progress in scaling up GCF contributions between funding rounds has been gradual.
With its now-revoked £1.62bn pledge in 2023, the UK was among the donors that had increased its GCF pledging compared with the previous 2019 funding round.
The latest reduction means the UK will now provide around 45% less funding than it did during the 2019 round. This is the biggest reduction between rounds by any major donor, apart from the US.
In an email to the GCF board, reported by the Financial Times, the fund’s executive director Mafalda Duarte said the UK’s actions were “expected to have a material impact on the delivery” of the fund’s projects.
According to the newspaper, Duarte noted that the move came as the UK cuts its overall aid budget in order to “invest more in addressing growing security threats”.
In March, the UK government announced plans to spend “around £6bn” of its aid budget on climate projects in developing countries over the next three years.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that this spending amounts to roughly halving the UK’s annual climate finance, when accounting changes and inflation are factored in.
The post Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut
SYDNEY, Tuesday 12 May 2026 — Ahead of tonight’s Federal Budget, the following statement can be attributed to David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“As the Albanese government hands down the budget, it has an obligation to both look after households today, and to set Australians up for a flourishing future.
“The government has an opportunity to give Aussies a fair shake of the sauce bottle by taxing gas corporations fairly, accelerating the clean, affordable renewable solutions we already have, backing its own nature law reforms with appropriate funding and by protecting our oceans, forests and climate from polluting gas projects.
“The massive swell for fairly taxing gas corporations shows the public mood has permanently shifted; most Australians rightly do not accept that gas corporations like Woodside and Santos should make obscene war profits, while everyday people face soaring bills, and natural wonders like Scott Reef are threatened by reckless gas drilling projects.
“The global energy shock has exposed the dangers of our dependence on coal, oil and gas, and made clear that our future security and prosperity is in clean, affordable and homegrown wind and solar power.
“This must be a budget to benefit Australians, not gas corporations.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s 2026 Federal Budget expectations can be found here.
–ENDS–
Notes:
Greenpeace has spokespeople available for interview before and after the budget announcement, including experts who can speak on Australia’s climate and emissions, the gas tax, Woodside’s Browse project, Labor’s new nature law, and our renewable future.
Media contact:
Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or kbenard@greenpeace.org
Federal Budget must give Aussies a ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’: Greenpeace
Climate Change
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
PERTH, Tuesday 12 May 2026 — In response to Woodside’s Browse economic modelling released yesterday, the following comments can be attributed to WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Geoff Bice:
“Greenpeace has analysed Woodside’s report on the polluting Browse gas project against independent modelling of WA’s energy system and emissions, and found glaring holes in the case made for the project.
“Woodside has reached a new low by modelling WA’s emissions reduction and energy transition pathway based on wildly expensive and risky decarbonisation options simply to justify its reckless Browse development at Scott Reef, initially rejected by the WA Environmental Protection Authority on environmental grounds.
“The WA Government cannot allow climate policy to be directed by climate vandals like Woodside. The clearest way to get WA’s emissions down is by setting clear emission reduction targets, which Greenpeace continues to call for.”
Key points from Greenpeace’s analysis of Woodside’s modelling follow:
- Gas is the most expensive form of available electricity generation, according to the CSIRO; IEEFA also found that Browse gas would be about four times higher than the current average production cost of domestic gas in WA.
- Direct air capture (DAC): The model assumes WA will be able to capture 6.9Mt of CO2/year by 2050. Worldwide, the current total volumes captured are 0.01 Mt CO2/year. DAC is currently priced at a minimum of $USD-400/tonne with many estimates ranging higher. Even reduced to $200/tonne, the cost per year of the volumes modelled becomes a staggering $1.38 billion, or $34.5 billion by 2050.
- Carbon dumping, or carbon capture and storage (CCS): The model requires 40 times the amount of sequestration that occurred last year at WA’s only CCS operation on Barrow Island (32.4Mt compared to 1.3Mt). Barrow Island CCS has consistently failed to meet requirements and last year alone cost $344m (at 265 AU$/tCO2). At those prices the Woodside modelling results in a cost per year by 2050 to be $8.6 billion.
- Woodside’s Pluto gas facility has been supplying less than 4% to the WA market, far short of the 15% required under the WA domestic gas reservation policy.
- Woodside includes $1.6 billion payable via the Offshore Petroleum Levy. The Levy was implemented to offset offshore decommissioning costs to the taxpayer but is set to expire in 2030 — 3 years before the Browse field is proposed to come online.
-ENDS-
High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here
Media contacts:
Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut
Federal Budget must give Aussies a ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’: Greenpeace
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
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