groundWork is a non-profit environmental justice service and developmental organization working primarily in Southern Africa in the areas of Climate & Energy Justice, Coal, Environmental Health, Global Green and Healthy Hospitals, and Waste. groundWork is the South African member of Health Care Without Harm and Friends of the Earth International.
Massive Explosion at Engen Oil Refinery in Durban
04 December 2020 - An explosion occured at the Engen oil refinery in south Durban this morning. Emergency services are currently on the scene trying to defuse the flames. The cause of the explosion is still not clear. The community around the area are still in shock and those who work at the refinery could not go to work.
groundWork and SDCEA (South Durban Community Environmental Alliance) have previously called for the refinery to shut down. Coincidentally, the explosion occurs while PASA (Petroleum Agency of South Africa) is in Durban to visit the Merebank community on a number of issues. The Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) plans to be at the Merebank community Hall at 10am in a follow-up meeting in relation to fossil fuels exploration. One of the key concerns communities face is the lack of transparency in public access to documents such impact on people's health and safety, including emergency, disaster, and contingency plans. Where liablity rests for incidents, accidents and explosions that impact on people and the environment, is a further area of concern.
Voice Notes Attached: Bobby Peek (groundWork) speaks from south Durban where the explosion occurred:
Voice note 1
Voice note 2.
Contacts:
Tsepang Molefe
+27 74 405 1257
media@groundwork.org.za
Avena Jacklin
+27 82 456 8886
avena@groundwork.org.za
Remembering our Heroes
03 December 2020 - Today marks the start of a project to record our memory of, and gratitude towards, those heroes who have perished in the struggle for environmental justice - Mam'Fikile Ntshangase, Bazooka Radeba and Berta Caceres amongst others. Over the next few weeks we aim to establish a permanent record of their contribution to the struggle on the Remembering our Heroes page of this website.
MaFikile today is with the ancestors, not only from this area, but with the many who have died because they have tried to defend their land, livelihoods and their environments. Global Witness, an organisation which monitors Human Rights, Land and Environmental defenders globally, gives us the sad hard evidence that MaFikile was not alone. In July they released their Annual Report, which stated that in 2019, 212 people were murdered globally for peacefully defending their homes and standing up to the destruction of nature.
This is four people every week.
Celebrating a major climate victory: Court sets aside approval for Thabametsi coal power plant
March 2, 2017. Activists from Earthlife Africa demonstrating outside the Pretoria High Court at the start of the hearing of South Africa's first climate change lawsuit. Picture: JAMES OATWAY for CER.
01 December 2020 - Last week, the High Court in Pretoria set aside the environmental approval for the 1200 MW Thabametsi coal-fired power station that would have been built in its first phase at 557 MW outside Lephalale in Limpopo province.
The court order was the result of the settlement of a court application brought by environmental justice groups Earthlife Africa and groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa against the development company Thabametsi (Pty) Ltd and the state, asking the court to set aside the environmental approval for the plant.
“Thabametsi would have been a climate and environmental disaster that would have cost our country R12.57 billion compared to a least cost electricity system,” says Makoma Lekalakala, director of Earthlife Africa.
In 2015, the year in which South Africa ratified the Paris Climate Agreement, as many as 13 private coal power plants were being planned under the 1000 MW coal-baseload independent power producer procurement programme. In 2016, two coal power plants, Thabametsi and Khanyisa, were announced as preferred bidders under the first bid window of this programme.
Thabametsi was backed by South Korea’s KEPCO and Japan’s Marubeni. Marubeni had stepped in as lead project developer after French company Engie withdrew its stake, under pressure from environmental justice groups, in 2015. Khanyisa, planned for Mpumalanga, is backed by Saudi company ACWA Power.
HEALTH CARE CLIMATE CHALLENGE - Global Green and Healthy Hospital 2020 Climate Champions Award
01 December 2020 – Over 300 participants, representing the interest of more than 22,000 hospitals and health centers in 34 countries will be celebrating the Health Care Climate Challenge Awards 20201. The importance of this award is to recognize the efforts that health sector leaders are making towards reducing their healthcare carbon footprint and to encourage other health institutions to follow suit.
Climate Change continues to be an existential threat with the Lancet describing climate change as a global health emergency that threatens to reverse 50 years of health gains in the developing world. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our time.”
This year, three Health institutions in the Africa region who are also members of the Global Green and Healthy Hospital (GGHH) network were recognized. They include the Mohammed VI University Hospital from Morocco, Western Cape Government Health, and Netcare Limited from South Africa. Their commitments, investments, and innovations are inspiring and guiding the sector around the world, particularly at this very moment when the current COVID-19 pandemic has increased the pressure on the health care sector.
More tough questions for climate rogue Sasol at its AGM on Friday
September 24, 2016. Secunda. Coal mining and powers stations in Mpumalanga. Picture: JAMES OATWAY for CER
20 November 2020 - On Friday, 20 November 2020, activists and lawyers from the Life After Coal campaign will participate in the virtual Annual General Meeting of Sasol Limited. They will be joining community and civil society organisations and activists from South Africa and Mozambique, all of whom have acquired shares in Sasol and therefore attend as shareholders, to ask pertinent questions of Sasol's board and management.
The Life After Coal campaign consists of environmental justice groups groundWork and Earthlife Africa and law centre the Centre for Environmental Rights.
Sasol is South Africa's second highest emitter of greenhouse gases,and its Synfuels plant in Secunda is reportedly the largest single-source point of emissions on the planet. Sasol is listed as one of the so-called Carbon Majors, the 100 companies estimated to be responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Sasol's mega-facilities in Sasolburg and Secunda have been causing significant pollution impacts affecting communities living in Secunda, Zamdela and surrounds for decades. A recent expert modelling report found that air pollution from Sasol's Secunda Synfuels plant alone is responsible for at least 33 additional deaths per year. Accordingly, between 2020 and 2025, at least 160 people may die from illnesses attributed to Sasol's air pollution in Secunda.
Landmark “Deadly Air” pollution case against government to be heard in May 2021
Photo: Daylin Paul
16 November 2020 - Every day, people living and working on the Mpumalanga Highveld are breathing toxic, polluted air that is harmful to their health and well-being. This is the basis of the Deadly Air case, which will be heard by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on 17 to 19 May 2021.
The applicants in the court case, environmental justice groups groundWork and the Vukani Environmental Movement, launched this Constitutional litigation in June 2019, requesting the court to declare that the poor ambient air quality in the Highveld Priority Area constitutes a violation of the Constitutional right to an environment not harmful to health or well-being. They are also asking the court to order the government to take further steps to improve the air quality in the area. The applicants are represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Prof David Boyd, was admitted as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the case by the Pretoria High Court on 5 November 2020. Professor Boyd is represented by Lawyers for Human Rights. Submissions will be made to the court on his behalf during the hearing.
Major climate impacts scupper another coal power plant
Activists from Earthlife Africa demonstrate outside the court during the hearing of the first Thabametsi coal-fired power station court case in March 2017. Image: James Oatway for CER
11 November 2020 - Major climate impacts and exorbitant costs have sounded the death knell for one of the last new proposed coal-fired power stations in South Africa: Thabametsi in water-scarce Limpopo.
Last week, environmental justice groups Earthlife Africa and groundWork, who have been challenging the Thabametsi power station in court since 2016, secured agreement from both Thabametsi and the state for the environmental authorisation issued for this power plant by the Department of Environment in February 2015 to be set aside. Earthlife and groundWork argued in court papers that former Environment Minister Molewa had disregarded the devastating climate impacts of the 557MW Thabametsi project (originally approved for a capacity of 1200MW).
The setting aside of Thabametsi’s environmental authorisation means that, should it still plan to proceed, it would have to seek a new authorisation from the Environment Department – a major setback for the project.
Case against Tendele Coal in the Supreme Court of Appeal
02 November 2020 - On Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 9:45, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein will hear the appeal by the Global Environmental Trust and others against a 2018 judgement of the Pietermaritzburg High Court, in which that court had refused to grant an interdict application brought by the Applicants against Tendele Coal Mining (Pty) Ltd and had ordered public interest litigants to pay the legal costs of the coal mining company.
The court hearing is of particular significance because of the shocking murder of 65 year old Fikile Ntshangase at her home in Somkhele, KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday, 22 October 2020. Mam Ntshangase was a member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), one of the applicants in the appeal, and a vocal activist against the expansion of the anthracite mine near the border of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve.
Read the full Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) media release here.
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