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Yet Idku remains defiant, even in the face of the Egyptian Liquefied Natural Gas  Project, a massive natural gas liquefaction facility on the nearby beach. The oil operations are run by two joint ventures Rashpetco and Burullus, whose shareholders include the British BG, Malaysian PETRONAS, French Gaz de France,  and the Egyptian state companies EGAS and EGPC .

Unfortunately, BP has not given up completely. Instead of recognising that it's not wanted, the company has moved to a new location futher east along the coast. Now the struggle moves to Mtubas  in Kafr elSheikh, the new proposed site for BP’s gas plant.

To day, these demands remain unmet. So when British Petroleum eyed Idku for an onshore natural gas processing plant, the community took matters into its own hand: it mobilized to stand up against the proposed project. Roads were blocked, a sit-in occupied the construction site, BP's office was raided and popular assemblies took place in the street. The organised local campaigning and resistance by the Idku community managed to halt BP’s plans.

Critics also point to Ghana’s long history of extractive activities and primary commodity exports: Ghana produces gold, bauxite, manganese, diamonds, timber and cocoa, none of which have generated appreciable benefits for the majority of Ghanaians.

Ghana has chosen to accept so-called ‘stabilisation clauses’ in its contracts with companies that lock in current laws and regulations. If the country should decide to strengthen its regulatory framework, companies with existing contracts could claim that the new laws do not apply to them, or require the government to provide financial compensation for the cost of compliance.[13] As foreign companies reap handsome rewards, and Ghana gains uncertain benefits (much of the content of these contracts remains secret), coastal communities are sure to pay the highest cost. At a recent Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) workshop held in the coastal town of Takoradi, representatives of six districts located closest to the oil find responded angrily to refusals to commit part of the petroleum royalties to an environmental mitigation or compensation fund, as is legally required in the mining sector.[24] No such provision has thus far been established for the oil and gas industry.

corporate interests are often recast as national security concerns. It was President Jimmy Carter who cemented the connection in his 1980 State of the Union address by stating that any foreign attempt to gain control of Middle Eastern oil would be regarded as ‘an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America.’ The policy, now known as the Carter Doctrine, set a dangerous precedent of using military might to secure ‘strategically important’ resources throughout the world.

In another case, the European Commission on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) has accused oil companies of complicity in crimes against humanity in a Southern oil field known as Block 5A. ECOS charges companies with pressuring armed groups to ‘clear the ground’, leading to a wave of repression in which 12,000 people were killed and another 20,000 displaced.

Farming accounts for as much as 32 per cent of total emissions, a significant portion of which are created by industrial agriculture through the use of petroleum-based fertilisers, pesticides and forest clearing.[38] The issue of ‘food miles’ – the distance our food travels from farm to table[39] – has been well documented, while new data shows that the production phase accounts for as much as 83 per cent of the average US household’s carbon footprint for food.[40] Changing the way we produce food, therefore, constitutes a necessary step towards reducing oil dependence, its enormous carbon footprint and its human toll.

Food sovereignty, the political project put forward by the international peasant movement Via Campesina, offers a promising road map.

Industrial agriculture may be more ‘efficient’ in terms of labour (output per worker), but its productivity is achieved through massive applications of fossil fuel-based inputs such as tractor fuel and agrochemicals. Small organic farms, however, are generally more efficient in terms of land (output per acre), since they grow a variety of plants and animals, taking full advantage of each ecological niche.

In the memo, lawyers also identified the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Angola, Canada and several other countries where Chevron has significant assets as potential targets. In the Philippines, it even suggested using the services of Frank G. Wisner, the retired diplomat and a foreign affairs adviser for Patton Boggs, who recently waded into the crisis in Egypt as an envoy for the Obama administration.

The ruling’s impact is already being felt in Ecuador and beyond as a cautionary tale of the environmental and legal aftermath of oil exploration. Alberto Acosta, a former oil minister in Ecuador, called the ruling “a historical precedent.” It is “a reminder that we have to defend ourselves from the irresponsible activity of extraction companies, both oil and mining,” Mr. Acosta said.