The effects of offshore gas projects contribute to a humanitarian crisis, and mainly only the companies and countries of the north benefit from the profits and commodities.
The Mozambican state, allied with French, Italian and American fossil fuel majors and their financial backers, continues to promote planned offshore gas projects in the war-torn northern province of Cabo Delgado. Proper assessments of the projects’ effect on climate and biodiversity, the potential contribution to humanitarian crises and requisite measures to safeguard human rights over the long term are all glaringly absent.
In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its groundbreaking advisory opinion on “the obligations of states with respect to climate change”. The ICJ determined that there are legally binding obligations on states to take appropriate action to avoid foreseeable harm to Earth’s climate system and to the natural environment. Failure by a state to prevent actions of private companies that would foreseeably contribute to the harming of the climate system may constitute an internationally wrongful act attributable to that state. The advisory opinion declared that the legal consequences of committing such a wrongful act “may include full reparation to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation and satisfaction”.
The ICJ unequivocally identifies climate change as a human rights concern. States are compelled to take their climate change obligations (under binding international treaties) into account when addressing their human rights obligations. Key principles are laid out to guide the interpretation of a state’s obligations. These include: common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities; the precautionary principle; sustainable development; and equity and intergenerational equity.
In Cabo Delgado, three new fossil gas projects operated by, respectively, TotalEnergies, ENI, and ExxonMobil are in the planning and construction stage, and one project is operational. The gas fields are in deep waters in the Rovuma Basin — up to 2km below sea level. Two projects involve floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plants, and two plan LNG facilities onshore. If the full estimated reserves (4.2 -5.1 trillion cubic metres) are exploited and burnt, this would result in about 10 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions.
When only the currently stated extraction volumes are considered, the full lifetime emissions of the four projects together would conservatively result in about 4.5 gigatonnes of CO2e emissions. These numbers should be viewed in relation to the entire remaining global carbon budget (RCB) for sustaining an 83% probability of keeping average global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C, which is below 60 gigatonnes of CO2e in August 2025.
Mozambique’s historic and current emissions are low, yet it is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. A low-lying country with a long coastline, it has already seen an increase in the frequency of cyclones, with severe humanitarian and economic impacts in rural areas. In 2024, tropical cyclone Freddy was recorded as the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, having travelled from Northwest Australia to East Africa, causing major losses over 36 days.
In 2019, Cyclone Idai, a particularly destructive storm that cost Mozambique about $3 billion, displayed an unusual pattern, strengthening and weakening repeatedly and making landfall twice. The number of people who were displaced during Idai was shown to be higher than it would have been in the absence of climate change.
Cyclone Kenneth, which struck Mozambique a few weeks after Idai, reached speeds of 220km an hour. The region experiences higher than average ocean warming and sea surface warming, and the intensity and frequency of tropical storms and cyclones is expected to increase substantially. Although Mozambique’s rural communities are resilient, they are considered to have reached the limits of their capacity to adapt.
The proposed gas projects could lock Mozambique into a high-carbon economy, where the country would face the risk of stranded resources as policies and actions to meet international climate commitments are strengthened globally. The country’s own vulnerability to climate change should prompt its leaders to prioritise actions to reduce carbon emissions. Ironically, however, Mozambique is potentially impeded from taking strong climate action as a result of investor protection provisions that expose the country to at least $29 billion in economic liabilities, should it take such actions.
It is mainly the wealthy nations of the north that would benefit from the profits envisaged from these projects, as well as from the LNG produced. Mozambique itself would be exploited for its resources and capital, receive nearly no appropriate technology transfer or other benefits, be denied important tax revenues because of tax avoidance mechanisms used for the gas projects, receive low and delayed revenues from gas, and be denied fair access to its own energy resources.
Since gas was discovered in Cabo Delgado about 15 years ago, socio-economic conditions have worsened in Mozambique, and a violent insurgency (believed to be fuelled by the gas projects) has devastated the north, brutalising people and displacing more than a million. As a direct result of the gas projects, thousands of people have lost homes, lands and access to the sea, making it impossible for them to conduct their livelihoods – or survive.
To protect the human rights of current and future generations in Mozambique and across Africa, the carbon bombs planned for the Rovuma Basin must be halted permanently. The African institutions involved must reconsider their willingness to be associated with the further, widespread harm that these projects will cause if they proceed. Financial flows to Mozambique should rather be directed at sustainable development that is defined and driven by Mozambicans for their own benefit.
Dr Chris Engelbrecht is a physicist. Rehana Dada is a researcher and activist focusing on environmental justice. Engelbrecht and Dada are key authors of the report, True Risk: The Environmental Risks of Deep-sea Gas Exploitation in the Rovuma Basin of Cabo Delgado.