What Next for Off-Shore Oil and Gas Resistance?

by Vishwas Satgar

December 9^th was certainly a powerful day of resistance against seismic blasting and exploratory operations for off-shore oil and gas: coastal communities expressed a resounding NO! It also galvanized huge support for the appeals process and brought together convergent struggles to stand in defense of the life enabling ocean commons; small scale fishers defending livelihoods, coastal suburbia concerned about oil and gas extraction in their immediate seascape, conservationists wanting to protect the marine environment and climate conscious activists wanting the rapid phase out of fossil fuels so we stop climate heating and harms. Standing together, an abiding truth that collective mass power can shape our life world, was affirmed. We demonstrated that while digital technology can support our struggles, most importantly us-in-action, on the ground in our communities, standing as the many against a corrupt government and powerful corporations was decisive. We drew a battle line together through our marches, placard demonstrations, photo opportunities and at tables signing up appeals. This battle line affirmed we value the life in the oceans more than the oil and gas grab by the corrupt ANC government: human and non-human life over profits!

While there are specific concerns about seismic blasting and off-shore oil and gas extraction which all convergent forces share, nonetheless the resistance to seismic blasting and off shore oil and gas is part of the larger struggle to sustain all life through climate justice. Climate justice is about social justice and non-human justice. Climate justice stands for life in its diversity, complexity and sublime beauty. It is about a politics to confront the most dangerous and life-threatening challenge of a greenhouse emitting system. This system has powerful interests supporting it, locking it in and reproducing it. These interests have hijacked the UN-climate negotiations and have delayed action for more than three decades. Even the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels is being toned down in the UAE convened COP 28 Summit. With current commitments from governments, we are facing a 2.9c overheating challenge according the UN global stock take report. The current UAE commitments from 130 governments and 50 fossil companies, according to the International Energy Agency, is taking us beyond a 1.5c overshoot in global average temperature, likely by 2034 according to one major scientific study. This means the Southern African region, including South Africa will be at 3c, given that we are one of ten hotspots in the world, and heating at twice the global average. This will have devastating consequences for our food, water and everyday lives. The poorest, workers and the most vulnerable will be hit the hardest. Such heating will be accompanied by more climate extremes: floods, droughts, heatwaves, storm surges and extreme storms, all of which have already been experienced in South Africa and will be getting worse.

South Africa is unprepared and actually on the path of a false transition. Climate noises and concerns come from the Minister of Environment, the Presidential Climate Commission and even the President but none talk about preparing the country for a looming 1.5c overshoot and its implications for the country and region. Instead, they want us to believe climate change is a ‘normal problem’; a risk a few people in government can handle and we need to merely follow the farce of global climate negotiations. Hiding behind that our government believes a few policy tweaks, positive messages of seeming to be doing something and most importantly talking up 2050 as the critical date for a gradual transition is enough to keep us all disengaged. They are wrong because the climate crisis threatens all our lives and futures now. Climate scientists, policy makers and politicians cannot solve such a big and dangerous challenge which is already having disproportionate impacts on society. We all need to own the climate problem and its systemic solutions. This is what climate justice politics and resistance, as democratic and transformative politics, is centrally about.

In South Africa climate justice has grown from critique of the multilateral process to a country and continental specific pluri-vision (to address the legacies of apartheid, our current poly crisis and secure a livable, just and democratic future ) as set out in the world’s first Climate Justice Charter (CJC available here https://www.cjcm.org.za )  and it  has become our guide for political action, policy and the tempo to accelerate the deep just transition in our communities, workplaces, sectors and the state to prevent harm to the most vulnerable. The CJC is a compass that gives grounded hope to the climate conscious public that knows the next drought, flood, heatwave and storm surge is coming. It helps us recognize the planetary clock is against us but together we can limit harm if we act now.

In short climate justice helps us to say no to the false transition in South Africa:

• No to more coal mining;
• No to stopping the decommissioning of old coal fired power stations;
• No to Karpowerships;
• No to nuclear power;
• No to fracking;
• No to more pollution from ESKOM and Sasol;

December 9^th embodies climate justice activism including marching during COP17 in Durban in 2011; youth and climate justice protests in 2018 and 2019; rolling protests for food sovereignty since 2015 (such as a hunger tribunal, drought speak outs, a bread march, food sovereignty festivals, the development of the People’s Food Sovereignty Act and finally through bottom up dialogues the Climate Justice Charter) that linked drought, high food prices and climate injustice; 73 actions across the country when the Climate Justice Charter was handed to parliament in 2020, 69 actions across the country against Shell and more. It is part of a growing and active consciousness for climate justice.  

In this context the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM) was born with 284 organisations endorsing the CJC thus far. After the CJC was ignored by parliament (2020 till the present), including a climate science document prepared by leading climate scientists, and in the context of wide and democratic deliberation the CJCM has decided to contest the 2024 national elections.

We are an anti-party movement driven from below by grassroots communities, people and workers.

Climate change is real. You would have lived through or know someone who has lived through a ‘day zero’ drought, flood, extreme storm, wave surge, wild fire and heatwave. The 2024 national elections  is our 2034 moment; our chance to get in front of the expected 1.5c overshoot. We are in a climate emergency and we have to act together now to limit harm. 

Our reasons for contesting the national elections and to be in parliament are as follows:

1. Challenge the crisis of leadership and  mainstream the urgency of the climate crisis. We do not need more coal, oil and gas. We want to be in parliament to put the country on a climate emergency footing;
2. To implement our Climate Justice Deal and policies for South Africa to accelerate the deep just transition in communities, workplaces, sectors and the state. We have answers to the crisis of unemployment, hunger, thirst, pollution, climate harm and species extinction; 
3. To drive transformative politics that places democratic strengthening, the web of life, the needs of grassroots women and society at the centre of politics. It’s time for a rational, caring and solidaristic politics to come to the fore: a democratic eco-feminist socialism;
4. Political parties have failed and operate like self-interested businesses. We want to demonstrate a societal-driven approach to political representation as an anti-party movement;
5. We want to renew South Africa’s constitutional democratic project before it is too late. South Africa’s criminalized market democracy is broken. Organised crime is out of control, corruption, anti-democratic behaviour and criminalized gravy train politics are pulling us down. We want to resist this with society; 
6. We want to affirm social, inter-species and multispecies justice and enshrine the rights of nature and non-human justice to ensure that all sentient beings are represented in our constitutional project. 

So what’s next that brings the collective power of climate justice forces to the center of society? What’s next so we ensure society owns and leads on the climate crisis? In answering these questions, we should all easily recognize that saying no is powerful and necessary but not enough. The current corrupt ANC government has brought South Africa to the brink of collapse, is anti-people and anti-worker and is certainly taking us to climate hell with more oil, gas and coal extraction. We need to shift power towards conscious and genuine climate justice forces in society to achieve an acceleration of the deep just transition in our communities, workplaces, sectors and the state. 

December 9^th and those that stood up and led in our coastal communities should embrace the challenge of a national struggle for climate justice now. We need to engage with the following options that all reinforce each other:

• Active dialogue to plan more rolling mass action till the end of this round of seismic testing in May, if the appeals are rejected and to stop more exploratory licenses from being given;
  
• Active support for the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM), a transformative anti-party movement, to contest the 2024 national elections on a climate justice platform for climate jobs, food sovereignty, zero waste, eco-mobility, rights of nature, a universal basic income, transition towns, holistic healthcare, water commoning and community and socially owned renewable energy to accelerate the deep just transition. Most importantly to vote for it as the climate emergency alternative on the ballot and to give it a mandate to go to parliament to stop more fossil fuels including off-shore oil and gas. 

Please make a contribution to the Climate Justice Charter Movement drive to get the climate emergency onto the ballot, with your interest, endorsement, donations or volunteering.

Vishwas Satgar is a co-chair of the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM) and co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign. He is a veteran activist and academic at WITS. He stood up with coastal communities in Sedgefield, Plett and Knysna on December 9^th.