European countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.
At the same time, both Egypt and Morocco also remain net importers of fossil fuel energy, buying in large quantities of oil and gas to fuel their own economies, while selling their cleaner energy to Europe, according to the report.
Greenpeace’s report argues that European-backed renewable and lower-carbon projects producing energy for export are hampering the two countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economies, displacing local populations and consuming millions of litres of fresh water, in some cases in environments where it was already scarce.
After the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia, European energy companies ploughed billions in investment into Egypt to access the country’s gas reserves, as they sought alternatives to the 80bn cubic metres (2.8tn cubic feet) of Russian gas suddenly taken off the market.
Hanen Keskes, the campaigns lead at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, said: “The global north must take responsibility for reducing its own consumption and building domestic renewable capacity, instead of externalising socio-environmental costs to the global south.
