11 December 2009
Is the South African government serious about climate change? Ask the World Bank!
As part of the CJN! SA’s [1] actions during the Copenhagen Climate Change negotiations, groundWork, South Africa’s leading environmental justice NGO is joined by South Africa’s foremost climate change NGO, Earthlife Africa (Jhb) in the release of groundWork’s new report investigating the on and off $5-billion dollar World Bank loan to Pretoria for future fossil fuel development. The report is being released in Copenhagen, Denmark and Durban, South Africa. This loan would be more than double the Bank's global lending for renewable energy, and represent the largest single loan ever made by the Bank to any African country.
Please join us for the South African launch.
Title: The World Bank and Eskom - Banking on Climate Destruction
Time: 13:00 to 14:00 hrs
Date: Monday, 14th of December
Room: The Well
Address: 20 St Andrew’s Street, Durban
See map
At the start of the final week of climate change negotiations we have to ask ourselves: Energy for whom? Climate destruction for whom?
‘The World Bank, deeply involved in climate negotiations and financing as it is, is not the institution to support the drastic change in direction that's required. And the South African government's own assumptions are not in fact very different from the Bank's. The new build is, after all, a home-grown idea. It was nurtured in an economy that is based on cheap labour and cheap energy. For big industrial users, but not for people, it provides the cheapest power in the world. This is the competitive advantage that has made the country one of the world's most carbon intensive economies.’ (groundWork 2009: The World Bank and Eskom - Banking on Climate Destruction, pg 29)
Speakers:
- David Hallows, groundWork Associate, groundWork, South Africa
- Tristen Taylor, Project Coordinator, Earthlife Africa, Johannesburg
Bobby Peek
Director, groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa
For more information call Bobby Peek at 082 464 1383, bobby@groundwork.org.za
Footnotes:
[1] CJN!SA has chosen Sasol and Eskom as the focus for collective campaigning to highlight South Africa’s dangerous actions that is fuelling climate change and leading to the destruction of the planet. CJN!SA is an alliance of organisations, communities and individuals in South Africa who are united in promoting just solutions to the impacts of climate change. Its mandate is set by its partners from social, environmental, labour and community-based movements and it works in close association with partner members in Climate Justice Now! International. CJN!SA was initiated in early 2009 to address specific issues around the promotion of climate justice in the South African context. It was launched in October 2009 following 7 months of consultations amongst grassroots organisations across South Africa. It believes that any shared vision on addressing the climate crisis must start with challenging the dominant of the development model, exposing false solutions to climate change such as carbon trading, and encouraging positive solutions. The coalition recognises that the threat of climate change integrates old and new struggles, and thus the call for climate justice is the same as struggles for land, water, ecosystems, agrarian and urban reform, food and energy security, and rights for people and nature.
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