On 15 May, campaigners from multiple groups disrupted the Africa Energy Summit. The elitist, secretive, high-security conference in the heart of London sparked outrage from all quarters as climate, human rights, and rainforest activists called it out for the racial capitalist and colonial event it is.
Africa Energy Summit: climate colonialism and corporate capitalism on full display
Calling for an end to the 29-year-old Africa Energy Summit, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Free London, War on Want, Christian Climate Action, Rainforest Foundation, StopEACOP UK, and others were joined by Senegalese drummers. They also played videos from Extinction Rebellion Democratic Republic of Congo.
The delegates – the vast majority of whom are white male executives of Western corporations – pay £4,730 to attend the three-day conference and its gala dinner. The summit assures them of secrecy, but no quarter of civil society in Africa support the summit.
Not for the first time, this elitist conference comes into criticism for racist and colonial attitudes. In 2023, the summit deliberately removed Salome Nduta, Africa coordinator for OilWatch Africa, from the list of delegates, in a move that reeked of racism. Organisers told Nduta that it was “sold out” even as they continued to advertise tickets.
The conference’s promotional video depicts white Western corporation leaders and a passive welcoming African continent. John Ardill, Exxon Mobil’s head of global exploration announces that:
Angola is open for investment. Namibia is open for investment. That’s when you can achieve these new million barrel-a-day new countries.
Gayle Meikle, founder and CEO of Frontier Communications Ltd, which organises the conference, states:
Let’s get those deals done.’ Yet the only African speaker featured is unnamed, with no close ups and simply says, ‘Greetings from the smiling coasts of Africa.
This dynamic is in line with accusations coming from the African continent. Speaking of EACOP, journalist Enoch Wanderema noted:
Uganda, the country from which the oil originates, has been cast in the role of host, not owner. Tanzania, whose land will bear the pipeline’s longest stretch, fares no better…. this is not a partnership; it’s a palatable version of plunder.
Groups call out corporate plunder of Big Oil
Multiple groups gathered with banners and placards outside the Africa Energy Summit:
Fossil Free London were there to demand an end to Equinor’s fossil fuel expansion in Africa and the UK. Its activists called the summit a “neo-colonial horror show”:
BREAKING: our climate activists just disrupted @equinor at the neo-colonial Africa Energies Summit, on the day of their Annual General Meeting pic.twitter.com/rHE0Eh6ZgF
— Fossil Free London (@fossilfreeLDN) May 14, 2025
Naturally, security and police swiftly responded to shield the company from public criticism. They quickly dragged the protestors out:
Fossil fuel companies profiteering in Africa
This year, Equinor has halved its renewable investments to $5bn while dropping targets for renewable energy production, and increasing oil and gas production by 10% over the next 2 years.
At its annual general meeting taking place in tandem this Thursday 15 May, minority owners pressed the oil giant on the “material inconsistencies” within their climate strategy and policy expectations. However, the motion is not expected to pass.
Equinor has been accused of greenwashing due to its recent rebranding as a “broad energy company”, despite maintaining 95% of its energy production in fossil fuels. The oil giant is pressing on with the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea. This is despite the original consent for developing unlawfully ignoring downstream carbon emissions.
Its latest $42bn LNG project in Tanzania could unlock 47.13 trillion cubic feet of natural gas deposits in the country for export. Across Africa, groups are campaigning against fossil fuel expansion in the continent, demanding a faster phase-out and increased support for African decarbonisation efforts. They are also calling for accountability for the damage companies like Equinor have caused through extraction operations.
Other activists gathered outside the conference to protest Total’s East African crude oil pipeline (EACOP). This will generate over 34 million tons of CO2 emissions every single year and threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land.
Africa Energy Summit is ‘nothing more than a modern day scramble for Africa’
The Africa Energy Summit comes amid renewed plans to develop oil and gas in regions such as Central Africa. Earlier this year, Swiss-based commodity trader Trafigura, an attendee at the summit, struck an agreement with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to develop two blocks in the east of the country. The blocks could threaten the Virunga National Park, a refuge to some of the last remaining Mountain Gorillas, and could connect to the EACOP pipeline project in Uganda.
UK-based climate and human rights activists have brought African voices of dissent to the protests outside and inside the conference for five consecutive years.
Director of Fossil Free London Robin Wells said:
Equinor unashamedly profits from climate collapse and human suffering. As they aggressively pursue new fossil fuel projects, they’re ensuring billions for themselves but only famines, droughts and heat–deaths for billions of us.
Worse still, those in the Global South, who’ve benefitted the least from our oil-crazed economy, will face the worst effects of the crisis that oil giants like Equinor have fuelled. We need Equinor out. Out of Africa, out of the UK and out of the future we so desperately need to make fossil free. All new fossil fuel projects, like the Rosebank carbon bomb, must be stopped.
Convenor of Africa Movement Building Space Omar Elmawi said:
The Africa Energies Summit is nothing more than a modern day scramble for Africa, a colonial theatre where corporate interests auction off our resources, while our people, nature, and climate are treated as expendable collateral. This is not development, it is a sacrificial ground for 1.5 billion people that call Africa home.
Coordinator of the StopEACOP Campaign Zaki Mamdoo said:
The Africa Energies Summit is a modern-day Berlin Conference, where decisions about our land, our resources, and our future are made without us. Even still, this summit is racist and colonial not because of who is or isn’t at the table, but because of what the table is for: the continued plunder of Africa. A few complicit African elites might be present, but the agenda remains the same, treating our continent as a resource pit and our people as disposable labour.
Featured image and additional images via Kirk Pritchard
