Cape Town - Standing with placards and joined hands, members of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (Safcei), The Green Connection, Oceans not Oil, and youth-led Project90by2030, gathered in front of Parliament for an energy vigil to mark the beginning of Environment Month and a call for proper energy planning.
As the country continues to grapple with a debilitating energy crisis and weak governance on energy planning, the groups, on Wednesday, called for the country to adopt proper energy planning, and raised concerns about the government’s persisting nuclear energy aspirations.
Safcei and The Green Connection are urging the government to speed up addressing the root of the problem by prioritising the development and implementation of a proper and legally compliant Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) that considers environmental impacts and climate change, and that does not pose additional risk to people’s livelihoods.
Safcei executive director Francesca de Gasparis said: “We are calling for an energy plan, the IEP, that works for all South Africans and for the cessation of all government’s nuclear, gas and coal plans – which cannot exist in a truly just energy transition. We have had enough of these false solutions that harm us all and violate the rights of already-marginalised communities.”
The Green Connection’s strategic lead Liziwe McDaid said: “We urgently need a roadmap to tell us where we are going and how we will get the energy future that will serve the interests of not only this generation but those still to come. This means we need to stop prioritising short-term greed and focus on evidence-based, long-term sustainability.”
At the beginning of the year, the Green Connection and Safcei launched a legal challenge to review President Cyril Ramaphosa’s failure or refusal to bring Section 6 of the National Energy Act (NEA) into operation, which requires that a proper IEP is developed for the country, in consultation with the public.
After initially opposing the legal challenge, Ramaphosa committed to bringing section 6 into operation on April 1, next year.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said Ramaphosa was in the process of bringing section 6 of the act into operation. He added that this would enhance support for the Energy Action Plan, which remains the government’s key plan for securing electricity supply and ending load shedding.
However, the groups remained concerned about the year-long wait before this law comes into operation, and the legal obligation on the government to develop and publish the IEP.
McDaid said they hoped the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, the Presidency and the Cabinet would fast-track and prioritise the process to develop an IEP.
“We also urge our government to approach this matter in the spirit of co-operation and human-interest, so that we can begin to work together to effectively and holistically address the most pressing crisis that continues to hurt our fellow South Africans,” she said.
This vigil comes after the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) released its recommendations for the country’s electricity system, in which it concluded there is no room for new coal and nuclear power in South Africa’s energy mix, and that the least-cost approach to the country’s energy crisis included 50 to 60GW of renewable energy by 2030.