Saturday, 4th December 2010

A Peoples’ Memo from South Durban

President Zuma we ask you to act meaningfully and democratically on climate change.

President Jacob Zuma
Claudette@po.gov.za

Corporations Stop your environmental and climate injustice.

Engen Petroleum Ltd
Willem Oosthuizen (Willem.Oosthuizen@engenoil.com)

Mondi
Rani Samuels (rani.samuel@mondigroup.co.za)

Sapref (Shell and BP SA Petroleum Refineries (Pty) Ltd)
Bart Voet (voetb@sapref.com)

Industrial Oleochemical Products (Pty) Ltd
Martin Godbolt (martin.godbolt@oleo.co.za)

FFS Refiners (Pty) Ltd
D W Hunter (donh@ffs.co.za)

Island View Storage Ltd
Gillian Marnewick (gillian@ivstorage.co.za)

While the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCCC) on Climate Change takes place in Cancun people all over the world are hoping that a legally binding agreement on climate change will be reached. Society demands an agreement free from trading of carbon, the privatization of forest and the offsetting of pollution rather than direct reductions at source.

Sadly, from feedback from community people at the conference, it is unlikely that success is on the horizon.

While formal negotiations take centre stage, it is at a local level globally where impacts are felt most severe and we people are organising new futures which seek to give meaning to our right to an environment that is no harmful to ones health and well-being. Today, we stand with thousands of people globally demanding meaningful action that will address climate change now, not tomorrow.

As residents of south Durban, we are at the receiving end of the environmental injustices and decay that the industries you manage cause daily. The intensive petro-chemical and related facilities in south Durban, are the drivers of climate change. For us climate change is here and now in our neighbourhoods you have encroached upon. Your production processes result climate change. You are the drivers of climate change. You drive climate change with consent and facilitation of our President and government.

It is in this reality of environmental injustice and amongst the drivers of climate change that South Africa will be hosing the UNFCCC in November 2011.

Recognising the above we demand that:

– The South African government’s position in the UNFCCC must be cognisant of the peoples’ concerns in South Africa rather than corporate lobbying;

– The South African government supports a legally binding and enforceable agreement with meaningful reduction targets for the short, medium and long term which is free from carbon trading and offsetting, placing the global burden on climate change gas reductions on the poor rather than the elites who have attained wealth resulting in the present climate change;

– The South African government facilitates as a mater of urgency a new development path that will make us less carbon intensive and non-reliant on petro-chemical corporations, which result in South Africa being the 11th highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world – the Integrated Energy Resource Plan 2010 does not facilitate such a process;

– The South African government meaningfully engages with the people of South Africa to develop an alternative plan that does not destroy the environment for the present and future generations;

– South Durban’s industrial future is renewable and not tied up in the fossil fuels with its inevitable demise; and

– Industry and government grant communities immediate and unrestricted access to all industrial emission information and operating licences of all industries in south Durban that facilitate the intensifying of climate change and local environmental injustices.

Let the residents of south Durban not pay with their health for the climate injustices caused by corporate power, and let the people of South Africa not be burned with South Africa’s increasing climate debt as corporations make profit at the expense of people and the climate which is sadly facilitated through our democratic constitution.

A response to the above is requested by close of business on Friday, 17th December 2010

Desmond D’Sa
sdcea3@ mail.ngo.za