By Claudia Delgado
On November 17, 2022, GW Law’s Environmental and Energy Law Program hosted The J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Distinguished Lecture on Global Climate Change and Energy Law. This lecture celebrates the vision and leadership of Professor Arnold Reitze, founder and director of the GW Law’s Environmental and Energy Law Program from 1970-2008, by inviting globally recognized environmental experts to address cutting-edge issues on climate change and energy law and policy. GW Law had the honor and privilege of hosting Dr. Damilola Olawuyi as its inaugural distinguished lecturer. Dr. Damilola Olawuyi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is a Professor and Associate Dean for Research at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) College of Law in Doha, Qatar and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Afe Babalola University in Nigeria. He is also the UNESCO Chair of Environmental Law and Sustainable Development. His presentation, “The Search for Climate and Energy Justice in the Global South: Shifting from Global Aspirations to Local Realization,” addressed whether climate and energy justice can be secured if those most vulnerable to climate and energy insecurity are not adequately protected with human rights-based safeguards.
Dr. Olawuyi began his lecture by highlighting the unequal distribution of energy around the world. Unlike in the U.S., where energy affordability is the main problem, in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Nigeria, India, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Mozambique, access to energy is the center of energy injustice. Lack of energy access in these countries affect the most underprivileged communities, and as a result, those communities are more directly and adversely impacted and suffer human rights violations.
Energy access is imperative because energy injustice affects access to food and water. Electricity is needed for food and water preparation, distribution, refrigeration, and safe consumption. Food can spoil quickly without proper handling, which in most cases requires energy. Energy injustice also affects access to food in arid countries where working the land becomes a challenge without access to energy. As a result, food needs to be imported and the access to fertile land becomes a priority that different actors, such as companies and communities, resort to armed conflict to resolve. Energy injustice also affects what companies are able to do or not do. Because of the lack of energy, many factories have shut down operations. This in turn directly affects local economies by eliminating jobs and other economic opportunities for the communities in the area.
Another critical point in Dr. Olawuyi’s lecture focused on the harm that many Western companies cause when they come to the Global South intending to “go green” in seeking a more environmentally sustainable approach to their business model. Unfortunately, many companies try to achieve this objective by hiring a workforce and not paying them fair wages for their work. Benefits and resources that the companies reap are not fairly distributed. These companies also leverage their resources to engage in land grabbing. As a result, underrepresented communities, such as local and indigenous peoples, are often displaced from their ancestral lands. Other members of underrepresented communities, such as women and children, are also not taken into consideration in decisions that affect their lives and futures. Women are usually not even given the opportunity to hold senior leadership positions in many of these companies. Dr. Olawuyi concluded by asserting that we cannot achieve energy justice without gender justice.
Additionally, companies that legitimately want to engage in energy innovation and community improvement can sometimes end up doing more harm than good. This can stem from the “cosmopolitan justice dimension.”1 This encapsulates the concepts that preaching the message of decarbonization to countries that did not carbonize, is itself an injustice, and that countries rich in natural gas should be allowed to use it as green or blue hydrogen.2 Furthermore, as these companies modernize different processes in order to develop a transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy, negative consequences on the communities (such as unemployment) and how to mitigate them often are not fully considered. Dr. Olawuyi stressed that specific vulnerabilities and needs of developing countries must be taken into consideration to secure climate and energy justice in the Global South.
Dr. Olawuyi discussed some of the gaps and disparities causing or contributing to energy injustice and recommended several potential strategies to enhance protection of climate and energy justice in the Global South. These gaps include the inaccurate and incomplete measuring of people who lack access to energy; that very few African countries have climate change laws; the fragmentation of responsibility towards human rights; that many countries’ energy laws do not mention social justice, gender, or human rights; and that the people implementing energy laws lack knowledge or training in human rights. In order to begin addressing these problems, Dr Olawuyi recommended that companies, governments, and other international organizations partake in community engagement, risk analysis, due diligence, and ensure access to the correct and accurate data to promote accountability. These entities need to educate themselves on what it means to engage in climate projects in communities that have their own unique ways of living, interacting and sustaining themselves. Furthermore, lawyers should advocate for victims of energy injustice via pro-bono initiatives. Finally, governments need to ensure that their countries’ energy laws have human rights as a primary focus. Appropriate safeguards need to be implemented when undertaking environmental projects so that vulnerable communities are not negatively impacted in the pursuit of environmental progress. Vulnerable communities’ needs and interests must not be overlooked in the Global North’s journey to secure a clean and renewable energy future.
1 Aare Afe Babalola & Damilola S. Olawuyi, Overcoming Regulatory Failure in the Design and Implementation of Gas Flaring Policies: The Potential and Promise of an Energy Justice Approach, Sustainability, June 2, 2022, at 5 (“Cosmopolitan justice emphasizes the need to address the cross-border impacts of energy activities, projects, and policies. Given that the environment knows no borders, the environmental impacts of gas flaring in one country may result in climate change, air pollution, and other transboundary environmental impacts in other countries.”)
2 Catherine Clifford, Hydrogen Power is Gaining Momentum, but Critics Say it is Neither Efficient Nor Green Enough, CNBC (Jan 6, 2022), https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/06/what-is-green-hydrogen-vs-blue-hydrogen-and-why-it-matters.html (“Green hydrogen is when the energy used to power electrolysis comes from renewable sources like wind, water or solar. Blue hydrogen is hydrogen produced from natural gas with a process of steam methane reforming, where natural gas is mixed with very hot steam and a catalyst. A chemical reaction occurs creating hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Water is added to that mixture, turning the carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide and more hydrogen. If the carbon dioxide emissions are then captured and stored underground, the process is considered carbon-neutral, and the resulting hydrogen is called ‘blue hydrogen.’”
