Party politicians fiddle about with climate change while SA burns
The movement behind the Climate Justice Charter is determined to open eyes in parliament — and in the rest of Africa — to the urgency of the crisis
Anyone standing on the banks of the overflowing Theewaterskloof Dam, the largest in the Western Cape, could be excused for scoffing at any assertion that SA is on fire. With the dam 99% full, such an observer could also be excused for forgetting about the day zero challenge that engulfed Cape Town in 2018.
Welcome to the complexity of the climate crisis. According to climate science, SA is burning; one of 10 hotspots in the world, it is heating up twice as fast as the global average. Joburg’s recent heat wave, in the early days of summer, brought temperatures perilously close to 35°C — the point at which the human body can easily be overcome and perish.
Those with access to water, air conditioning and living spaces do better, but many do not have such luxuries and endure climate injustice. This “normalised inequality” has been exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Climate science has warned about the risks that further heating will bring to SA. In simple terms, it is telling us that increased use of oil, gas and coal means tomorrow is born in fire. In this decade, a 1.5°C planetary overshoot is very likely, which means SA will be 3°C hotter.
At such temperatures, globalised commercial agriculture will break down and multi-year droughts will be a regular occurrence. Extreme weather shocks are also likely. Our ecosystems will be further stressed, and our socio-ecological order will be pushed decisively in the direction of collapse.
This is not dystopian cience fiction or alarmist fearmongering. These challenges are set out in a document prepared by some of SA’s leading climate scientists and shared with parliament on October 16, World Food Day.
The online assembly with parliament also shared the world’s first Climate Justice Charter, demanding that it be adopted by SA.
The charter comes out of six years of campaigning, during the worst drought in SA’s history, led by the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign. It was shaped by constituency dialogues and public input over a two-year period.
Why did civil society rally widely before the handover of these documents to parliament, under the banner of ending hunger, thirst, pollution and climate harm? Why did 220 organisations endorse the charter, including trade unions, informal traders, schools, social justice organisations, environmental organisations and leading political foundations like the Mandela, Gandhi and Kathrada foundations? Because we are dealing with a serious challenge, which everybody needs to own.
But our political leaders are not taking it seriously.
With the prospect of our extinction as a species on the planetary agenda, it is rational to assume that every person who considers themselves a leader in society — particularly every political party — will be seized with this issue. You would expect climate crisis news to be mainstreamed in the media. You would expect every policy agenda to mainstream it as a systemic problem to be solved. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
SA is the 11th-highest emitter of carbon emissions in the world. Our coal addiction is criminal. Successive ANC governments have continued to reproduce the carbon-based minerals energy complex. Under the Ramaphosa government, including in his economic recovery plan, more mining is promoted, globalised agriculture is supported and he has fast-tracked the extraction of oil and gas. This is an anti-climate justice and anti-climate science government.
At the same time, none of our political parties in parliament have a serious agenda to tackle the crisis. This was evident when the top four parties in parliament (the ANC, DA, EFF and Freedom Front Plus) declined an invitation to debate the urgency of the climate crisis at the recent online assembly. The three parties that did participate displayed extremely lacklustre conceptions of climate issues. Are these professional politicians really serious about the concerns of citizens?
When the world overshot a 1°C rise in temperature in 2015, a second cycle of global climate justice activism exploded onto the world stage, led by indigenous peoples’ struggles at Standing Rock in the US, followed by Extinction Rebellion and then Greta Thunberg’s #FridaysForFuture movement. These movements have raised awareness about the worsening climate crisis, but governments have continued to lack the commitment to decarbonise.
At the same time, the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign started its long march to connect hunger, food price increases, drought and climate crisis. In the hurly-burly of this activism the Climate Justice Charter was germinated.
Like the Freedom Charter, it is premised on the need to give voice to the desires, visions and systemic alternatives that ordinary people want for a deep, just transition to survive a worsening climate crisis. It also calls for SA to lead a climate justice agenda in Africa.
After the nuclear arms race of the 20th century brought the world to the edge of extinction, SA’s new democratic government boosted its moral authority by destroying all nuclear weapons. This gave Mandela’s government a stature unrivalled in the global north and south.
Similarly, the Climate Justice Charter calls on SA to lead decarbonisation, to provide an inspiring example to the world and to lead a climate justice deal for Africa, including an “end fossil fuel treaty” in the UN system. The world needs such an example before irreversible climate change is locked in. The Climate Justice Charter movement born in this process will not settle for anything less.
In a year’s time, on October 16 2021, the Climate Justice Charter movement will return to parliament to confirm that the charter has been adopted. If SA’s parliamentary parties do not rise to this challenge, all legal and democratic options will be pursued to advance a climate justice future for SA.