Congo oil auction raises environmental concerns

• Congo Basin traps billions of tonnes of greenhouse emissions.
• Drilling might unleash 5.8 billion tonnes of carbon.
• Congo’s government says it would hold oil firms to environmental standards.

On Thursday, 30 oil and gas blocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo will be auctioned, opening areas of the world’s second-largest rainforest to drilling that might release enormous amounts of carbon.

Congo Basin traps billions of tonnes of greenhouse emissions. Several planned oil blocks overlap peatlands, which prevent plant decomposition.

Simon Lewis, a major researcher on Congo’s peatlands, projected last month that drilling there might unleash 5.8 billion tonnes of carbon, or 14% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.

“In a zone where there are peatlands, any industrial exploitation means the explosion of a carbon bomb,” said Irène Wabiwa Betoko, who leads Greenpeace’s Congo Basin project.

“We will have a terrible environmental catastrophe that no one can repair.”

Two oil blocks overlap Virunga National Park, a mountain gorilla sanctuary in Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo’s government says it would hold oil firms to rigorous environmental standards to limit damage, but its goal is obtaining income to improve living conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries.

It has accused richer countries of duplicity for urging developing nations to eschew fossil fuels.

Hydrocarbons Minister Didier Budimbu said Tuesday that “We are not going to follow the diktats of an NGO,” .“We are going to do what is right for our population.”

Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, a presidential adviser, was cautious about Congo backing down for reparations from richer countries.

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