Climate activism heats up in South Africa

South Africa is on the cusp of what can aptly be described as a carbon amplification scenario. The state-owned electricity utility, Eskom, is seeking to build up to six more coal-fired power stations; already Eskom produces half of South Africa’s annual 440 megatonnes (mt) of carbon emissions. In addition, with government financial support, the petrochemical corporate giant Sasol is aiming to construct another coal-to-liquids plant, which would add another 30 mt to its existing greenhouse gas emissions of 72 mt per year. Despite already being the world's most carbon-intensive economy, the South African government is participating in Copenhagen with the primary objective of getting a deal that doesn’t require it to reduce its emissions.

During the national Climate Change conference in March of this year, aimed at preparing for the COP15, communities most impacted by regressive post-Apartheid policies were excluded and partnerships in solving climate change with Sasol and Eskom were lauded. A peoples’ summit was held just outside the official venue and activists from Johannesburg's poorest urban suburbs besieged the gates to the swanky conference venue demanding to be heard. A moratorium was delivered to the lead department on climate change calling for urgent emissions reductions, investment in renewable energy, and Free Basic Electricity - although the response later came that the demands were “outside of the Department's remit.” Subsequently, a video of the protest was pulled off the government website, while Sasol’s ravings on the then theoretical carbon capture and storage programme remained.

Citizen activism on climate change increased throughout the year, despite the focus of the people on deep issues of endemic unemployment (40 per cent), the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemic, and an economic depression that has leached the country of a million workers.

This activism has involved repeated protests outside of Sasol’s global headquarters, including hosting climate change mock trials exposing the corporation’s climate sins, and repeated policy and legislative submissions including those against electricity tariff hikes which would affect the poor most dramatically. Climate hearings were hosted in various parts of the country drawing attention to the problems faced in those regions, including oil company Engen’s toxic connection to the community of South Durban and issues of water scarcity in the Western Cape. In November, the South African Parliament held hearings on gender and climate change. A group of poor women from Johannesburg made the 1300 km journey to take part. Parliament responded by refusing the women their constitutional right to speak in their home languages and forcing them to speak in English, which is often a fourth or fifth language.

A victory was finally registered in getting transnational corporation Rio Tinto to abandon a proposed aluminium smelter in South Africa. The Department of Energy has put plans for one of the new coal-fired power stations on ice, as well as freezing further plans for developing nuclear power stations. The launch of Climate Justice Now! South Africa, after months of consultations with community organisations, also heralds an era of forging new solidarities between social and environmental justice concerns.

www.earthlife.org.za