UGANDA-CLIMATE-ENVIRONMENT-OIL

A general view of Total Energies' well pad under construction inside Murchison Falls National Park in western Uganda on February 22, 2023. - Oil is coming to this biodiverse but impoverished region on the eastern shores of Lake Albert -- and not everyone is pleased about it. French oil giant TotalEnergies, which is developing the Tilenga oil field, will learn on February 28, 2023 if a court in Paris agrees with accusations that it trampled on human rights and the environment in pursuit of fossil fuels in Uganda. From 2025, the company says, oil will be pumped from landlocked Uganda over 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) to the coast of Tanzania along what will be the world's longest pipeline of its kind. Critics say the project -- which partly stretches into Murchison Falls National Park, a protected area -- threatens one of Africa's most fragile ecosystems and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. (Photo by BADRU KATUMBA / AFP) (Photo by BADRU KATUMBA/AFP via Getty Images)