“South Africa is highly dependent on coal for energy. We are trying to engage the government to go from a coal-based economy to a low carbon economy”, said representative of the Vaal Environmental Alliance, Samson Mokoena, in interview with Real World Radio.

The South African social movements and organizations expect the government to urgently address the issue of coal, in a country that they expose as Africa’s biggest polluter. For this reason they will place their demands at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, to be held from November 28 to December 9 in the South African city of Durban. Real World Radio will have two correspondents on the ground to do a special coverage of the event.

Vaal Environmental Alliance is a social movement based in an area nearly 70 km south of Johannesburg (one of the country’s main cities), in the Vaal Triangle. The group was created and officially launched in 2006 and it comprises more than 1,000 social groups. It works on issues such as: air quality, climate change and energy, water quality, environmental health and oil.

Some of the main campaign work done by Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance has to do with the operations of companies like South African oil refinery Sasol, Eskom (state-owned electricity company) and the global steel giant Arcelor-Mittal (siderurgy).

“We are aware that the companies are contributing immensely to climate change”, said Mokoena.

Over a hundred delegates from Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance will participate in the global day of action on December 3. The South African activists are also organizing a protest targeting major polluters especially coal-power stations, oil refineries and steel companies.

“We are aware that climate change is happening, especially that water resources are scarce in this country. We need to make sure that people get the resources, otherwise there will be a catastrophe. People are currently seeing this happening, especially small peasant farmers”, he added.

He said that social movements want to know exactly what the South African position will be ahead of the Cop 17 and how they are going to make sure they decrease their carbon emissions “so at least we can save humanity”.

“The South African government is under enormous pressure. One of the issues is about the South African delegation to the COP. The South African government is involving bigger contributors of climate change, such as Eskom [representatives]: the main electricity supplier as part of the negotiating team, also the oil refineries”.

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