Poor people at the frontline of climate change

GREEN PROTESTERS: About 300 members of Earthlife Africa took to the streets of Joburg yesterday to protest against Eskom's involvement in carbon emissions negotiations, as well as the lack of focus on renewable energy. Picture: Cara Viereckl

GREEN PROTESTERS: About 300 members of Earthlife Africa took to the streets of Joburg yesterday to protest against Eskom's involvement in carbon emissions negotiations, as well as the lack of focus on renewable energy. Picture: Cara Viereckl

Published Sep 21, 2011

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Sheree Bega

“Look around you,” said Tristen Taylor, surveying the climate change protesters encircling him. “You don’t see rich or middle-class people here, do you?”

Instead, the group Taylor, the project co-ordinator at Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, referred to were the 300-strong impoverished residents of blighted townships such as Kwathema, Sasolburg and Chiawelo, carrying posters that read: “Don’t bury Kyoto in SA” and “Down with nuclear power”.

“It’s the poor who are put in the most degraded areas who are on the frontline of climate change,” he explained. “When there is a flood, it’s not the people in Sandton who are washed away, it’s those in Alex. These are people who understand what flooding means, it’s their daily life already.”

The group had converged in the Joburg CBD yesterday morning where they marched to Eskom and BHP Billiton’s offices in protest against their “continued disregard for the environment and the nation”.

Fuelling the protest is Eskom and Sasol’s position as official representatives on South Africa’s negotiating team at the upcoming UN climate talks in December.

This is unacceptable, said Taylor, because the two companies account for the bulk of South Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

“The climate change talks are supposed to determine how to reduce global emissions, and the government is sending its biggest emitter of greenhouse gases to negotiate emission cuts. This is a straightforward conflict of interest especially as Eskom is currently increasing its emissions.”

He dismissed the government’s claims that the team is representative of South Africa.

“Why isn’t Cosatu, Busa or Nedlac on the negotiating team? There is no one from the renewable sector… Most other countries send elected representatives and scientific advisers to the climate conference. South Africa is sending polluting industries (Eskom and Sasol).

“Who represents South Africa? Is it the elected government or its captains of industry?”

He believes Eskom should voluntarily step down from the negotiating team. “We’re hoping enough pressure will sort of embarrass them (to recuse themselves),” said Taylor.

He had little hope South Africa would secure a meaningful climate deal in Durban as the country had failed to do the legwork and showed a low level of ambition from the outset.

Protesters also expressed anger about Eskom’s provision of “cheap electricity” to BHP Billiton in secret “sweetheart deals”, brokered by the SA National Energy Regulator.

Lunga Sibanyoni, an unemployed 23-year-old from Kwathema, said he wanted to understand more about climate change. “A lot of people in my community don’t understand what climate change is and why the weather is like it is; that if they use less coal the weather could go back to normal.”

Caroline Ntapone of the Sasolburg Air Monitoring Group said: “We’re working hard to mobilise people because we want people to be aware of what climate change is and how it will impact on their lives.

“For the poor, it is linked to their everyday struggle of food security, poverty, energy and water. All South Africans need to know that pollution does not have boundaries.”

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