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- Unpacking climate change for web
- groundWork Climate and Health roundtables
- brics-from-below! summit: Watching and challenging power!
- Visit the brics-from-below 2013 portal for information on civil society’s summit
- IS 8% REALLY ANY BETTER?
Why South African’s should not be thanking Nersa! - GENDER IMPACT WATCH AT MEDUPI
Community to pressure World Bank to admit gender impacts of Medupi - EARTHLIFE, GROUNDWORK, GREENPEACE QUIT STAKEHOLDER FORUM OVER ESKOM ESPIONAGE
- The Dirty Energy Week Report (2011): Challenging climate gangsters
At the end of 2011, the city of Durban was host to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 17th annual Conference of the Parties (CoP17), where governments, NGOs and business met to discuss new commitments in reducing carbon emissions globally and mitigating the effects of climate change. Out of this conference, came the ‘Durban Platform’, a weak deal set to keep people locked into a future of unsustainable and non-renewable energy use, with the consequential increase in the negative effects of climate change.
For a week before this conference, however, groundWork together with various NGOs, civil society organisations and people’s movements from across the globe, met to discuss our current dirty, fossil-fuel based energy system, the experiences of communities living next to extractive industries, as well to plot the way forward towards a new, people-driven energy system based on clean alternatives. Download the report...
- New fact sheet: Why the South African government should say NO to fracking!
In September last year, the South African cabinet lifted the moratorium – imposed over a year earlier – on hydraulic fracturing or fracking for shale gas in the Karoo. Despite the serious environmental and social impacts of fracking that have been highlighted by communities and civil society groups, the research commissioned by the Department of Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu suggests that the benefits of job creation, energy security and the boost to the country’s economy outweigh these negative impacts.
This new fact sheet not only explains what fracking exactly is and the main companies that have been granted permits to explore for gas in Karoo and beyond, but discusses critically the resulting detrimental effects and guides communities and civil society in South Africa on ways to begin resisting this extraction of natural gas. Download the factsheet...
- UN Global Mercury Treaty: Almost a step in the right direction
- Energy intensive users still to profit despite Eskom's tariff hikes
- New report: Dirtier than coal?
Picket against unsustainable Eskom application :
Eskom Nersa application akin to daylight robbery- Global mercury treaty would make Europe’s children brainier
- Worst corporation of 2012 exposed parallel to World Economic Forum:
Lonmin shortlisted in international Public Eye Awards - New World Health Organisation report: Endocrine disrupters and child health
"Reading about climate change can be confusing because there is a lot of jargon and it is not always clear what people are saying." David Hallowes has written a short guide to let people know what is happening and to make the debate more accessible. Download the pdf...
groundWork is holding a series of Climate and Health roundtables around the country. Download readings for participants and view links to videos here
Durban, South Africa, 20 March 2013 – As the five heads of states of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) meet on African soil in Durban next week for the developing nations’ summit, civil society in Durban will be holding its own summit of a very different nature. Read more...
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, 28 February 2013 – Despite the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) today announcing that it would halve Eskom’s proposed tariff hike application for the third round of the Multi-Year Price Determination (MYPD3) to 8%, it is clear that this is no fair compromise. Read more...
Gender Action
Lephalale, Limpopo, 26 February 2013 – Eskom’s World Bank-funded Medupi Power Station has the potential to seriously disrupt the social fabric, and in particular the lives of women, in Lephalale and surrounds. Women are disproportionately affected by International Financial Institution (IFI) investments in the extractive industry, often being the first to lose their livelihoods and to bear the burden of negative environmental and health impacts. Read more...
Johannesburg, Wednesday 13 February 2013 – Earthlife, groundWork and Greenpeace have suspended their participation in Eskom’s NGO forum following reports that Eskom contracted Swartberg Intelligence Support Services to spy on the organizations. The organizations have received documents exposing correspondence between South Africa’s utility monopoly and ‘Swartberg Intelligence Services’. Read more...
No longer a business-as-usual approach but essentially another paper tiger
Pietermaritzburg, 22 January 2013 – The world now has the text for a legally binding mercury treaty, which was decided upon by more than 140 countries this past weekend in Geneva at the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5) to prepare a global legally binding instrument on mercury. Read more...
A protestor’s placard left outside the Durban Nersa public hearing (International Convention Centre, 17 January 2013) makes known the public’s feeling about Eskom's proposed 16% tariff increase
Pietermaritzburg, 17 January 2013 – Large energy intensive users such as smelters are still making profits through Eskom’s energy buy-back schemes, despite them resisting energy price increases that will impact on the poor. Using the public’s money to prop up the profits of large energy users is an injustice that must be stopped. Read more...
A new report from Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds highlights that the government has chosen to exclude a number of key sources of emissions from biomass energy in their carbon calculations, with the findings based on fundamentally flawed data relating to greenhouse gas implications. Failure to fix the error and rework biomass policies will come at considerable cost to the public, and have a damaging impact our climate.
Read the report: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/
biomass_report_tcm9-326672.pdf
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
South Durban, 11 January 2013 – The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has announced the dates and venue for the upcoming public hearings on Eskom’s application for the third multiyear price determination (MYPD3), which will result in a cost unsustainable and unfair to the average South African.
Read more...
Health and Environment Alliance
Brussels, 7 January 2013 – Preventing environmental exposure to mercury could save the European Union €8-9 billion per year by protecting children’s brain development, according to a paper published in Environmental Health today. Read more...
groundWork, Friends of the Earth South Africa
The Bench Marks Foundation
Pietermaritzburg & Johannesburg, South Africa, 04 January 2012 – The nexus between corporate power and the political elite, and what this means for people and the environment is being exposed in the run up to the World Economic Forum which will take place in Davos, Switzerland between 23 to 27 January 2013. Read more...
Download the groundWork, Friends of the Earth South Africa submission to the Public Eye Awards 2013 nominations
The present document is a short summary of the current knowledge of the effects of endocrine disrupters on child health. The main focus is on congenital disorders, cryptorchidism and hypospadias, which have an endocrine connection, on thyroid hormone-related problems, and on puberty. There is ample evidence of endocrine disruption in wildlife, and the mechanisms of action of endocrine disrupters have been elucidated in experimental animals, but there is limited knowledge of the association of human disorders with exposure to endocrine disrupters. Accumulating data suggest that many adult diseases have fetal origins, but the causes have remained unexplained. Improving fetal and child health will influence the whole life of an individual and improve the wellbeing of our society. Read the report...
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