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CCS hosts groundWork, SDCEA and FrackFreeSA for climate and energy workshop, 25 February |
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Climate policy David Hallowes
Notes on Climate Change: The crisis deepens David Hallowes
All welcome at UKZN Centre for Civil Society on Thursday 25 February, for a workshop: Climate and energy justice in Durban, KZN and South Africa Hosted by: UKZN Centre for Civil Society, groundwork, Friends of the Earth South Africa, South Durban CommunityEnvironmental Alliance FrackFreeSA
Date: Thursday, 25 February 2016 Time: 12h30 – 17h30, with a 15 minute break in between sessions Venue: University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Memorial Tower Building 602 Speakers: • David Hallowes, Researcher at groundWork, will be presenting the groundWork Report. • Bobby Peek, Director of groundWork, will be presenting a review of the twenty-first United Nations Conference of the Parties in Paris, France in 2015. • Francois du Toit, CEO of African Conservation Trust, will provide an update on the various exploration applications in KZN, Free State and Eastern Cape, and insight to recent developments at the national level. • Desmond D’Sa, Coordinator of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), will be presenting on recent resistance to the proposed port expansion projects and the prospecting for offshore oil and gas drilling. Topics: Every year, the South African member of Friends of the Earth International, groundWork, produces a report on the state of environmental justice in South Africa. Last year, groundWork’s report focussed on South Africa’s climate and energy policy in the context of the United Nations climate negotiations in Paris. The Elite Trips Out is the third and final part of the Peoples’ Power series, which was preceded by Talking Energy and Planning Poverty: The NDP and the Infrastructure of Destruction. This will be accompanied by a report-back from the CoP21 looking at the dynamics of both the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ spaces of negotiations.
The Clairwood Racecourse – the last green lung of the South Durban Basin – is set to become a logistics park as part of the proposed R250 billion port-petrochemical expansion. While the major Dig-Out Port component of the development has been ‘postponed’, projects such as the logistics park are proceeding in piecemeal fashion, adding to local ecological destruction, social harm and climate change. Added to this, oil and gas drilling offshore Durban appears likely, as government supports prospecting applications by the notorious US firm ExxonMobil, even though a spill in the dangerous, fast-flowing Agulhas Current would potentially be catastrophic. Likewise, in a vast stretch of land from the Drakensburg to Northern KwaZulu-Natal, fracking prospecting continues and resistance by the FrackFreeSA coalition remains fierce.
All of these projects are being fought by communities, conservationists, recreational users and ordinary citizens who want to see a decarbonised energy system in which poor people have better access to affordable renewable sources and a ‘climate debt’ is paid to the many victims of climate change in KZN, especially desperate rural residents suffering from the acute drought, for months and years to come. Further information: Megan Lewis, Media and Communications Manager, groundWork, Friends of the Earth South Africa Tel (w): +27 33 342 5662 Tel (m): +27 83 450 5541 Email: megan@groundwork.org.za www.groundwork.org.za https://www.facebook.com/groundWorkSA@groundWorkSA
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