Creecy overrules 18 Appellants: TotalEnergies to drill off South Cape

Minister Creecy disappoints again – overruling multiple appeals by civil society. It seems increasing frequency and intensity of climate shocks mean nothing to our Minister for the Environment, who has marginalised all calls for precaution and care for our ocean, its many rare and endangered inhabitants, our fisheries and tourism, to sanction TotalEnergies go ahead with exploratory drilling for oil and gas in a fish spawning and cetacean migratory route.

Argument is not engaged for many of the highly contentious issues, but simply overruled with the ocean-grabbing economic rationality in which the maximum will be extracted, at the expense of others. The Minister’s decisions remain disembedded from the natural environment, ignoring the effects to the productive ocean, atmosphere and all interdependents. It is clear Minister Creecy applies her mind only to legitimate unjust appropriation.

Any view of the Phakisa timeline will show how long offshore development will take before RSA gets to ‘benefit’ from its own gas, meanwhile it poisons the sea. This barrage of exploration and seismic surveys in the ocean is not climate justice. We are decades away from any own-gas ‘security’ and the taxpayer pays for all of this development which costs over a $million a day.

Please read the minister’s decision and the reasoning of the 18 appellants who give insight as to what truly is at stake, then join the resistance to offshore oil and gas. It is ever more obvious that the State cannot be depended upon to protect the interests of its coastal communities, or deliver a just, timeous, deep energy transition: