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NATIONAL UNION OF METALWORKERS OF SOUTH AFRICA
Parliamentary Office
__
Unit UA57-59 4th Floor
No. 6 Spin Street
Cape Town CBD
8001
To
-
Ms Tyhileka Madubela
Committee Section Parliament of RSA
PO Box 15
Cape Town
8000.
Date
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6 February 2011
From -
Telephone: 021 - 4612923
Fax: 021 - 4617546
E-Mail: [email protected]
W. Aroun
Parliamentary Officer
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa
Re: National Climate Change Response Green Paper 2010
Dear Ms Madubela
Please find attached a copy of our submission Re: National Climate Change Response Green Paper
2010. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) notes that public hearings will
be conducted towards the end of February – March 2011. As such the Union is available to make its
presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs and can be reached as
follows:
Mobile Contact Number: 0825623670
Yours sincerely
W. Aroun
Numsa Parliamentary Office
Cape Town
President – Cedric Gina; 1st Deputy President – Phil Bokaba; 2nd Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) Submission to the Portfolio
Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs Re: National Climate Change Response Green
Paper 2010
Introduction
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) appreciates the role of the Portfolio
Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs in conducting public hearings on climate change and
welcomes this opportunity to comment on the National Climate Change Response Green Paper
2010.
Thus far the Union has made several representations to parliament on Climate Change and related
matters:
1. Portfolio Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs Public Hearings on Climate Change
17-18 November 2009
2. Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry – Public Hearings on IPAP II, 03 March 2010: A
NUMSA Response to the question on the significance and impact of energy supply
However, we are mindful of a range of power cuts across the country in 2007 and 2008 and the impact
of the global financial crisis that hit our shores in 2009, leaving thousands of workers unemployed and
penniless. Against this background public debates have emerged on energy supply, climate change, the
consequences of “global warming” and the need to reduce carbon emissions as a means of cleaning up
our environment. Coupled with this is the need to build a sustainable economy, create decent work and
eliminate poverty. In this context the debates that have emerged on climate change impose a sense of
urgency on the matter and as Parliament pointed out in a media statement prior to the public hearings
of November 2009 there is a need to take stock of the “political, economic, legal, gender and social
impacts of climate change”1 in society today. Moreover there is a need for the country to develop
policies on climate change that are consistent with the developmental agenda adopted at the
Polokwane Conference in 2007 and in line with the ANC Election Manifesto of 2009.
National Climate Change Response Green Paper 2010
As NUMSA we are aware that there are a number of parallel processes that seek to influence the
outcome of policy direction on Climate Change as the country gears up to host the 17th Conference of
the Parties (COP17) in Durban in December 2011. Just recently the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) commissioned the National Labour and Economic Development Institute
(NALEDI) to develop a comprehensive Policy on Climate Change that seeks to strengthen the
“capacity of COSATU and her trade unions to engage effectively on trade, climate change and
renewable energy [and] that will place the federation and its members in a stronger position to engage
in policy decisions for a just transition to a low carbon economy that supports the social well-being of
1
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
the poor and the working class” (NALEDI, 3 February 2011) Likewise the National Economic
Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) has established a Task Team within its Trade and
Industry Chamber to critique the Green Paper and consolidate a NEDLAC position on Climate
Change. While the importance of these parallel processes cannot be overemphasized, NUMSA
believes that metalworkers also have a responsibility to comment on the Green Paper:
Climate Change – Not a neutral debate!
In our 2009 submission NUMSA argued that the debate on climate change was not going to be neutral
and that the formulation of policy remains a site for serious engagement amongst contesting parties.
At an International Seminar on Energy, Work, Crisis and Resistance: Experiences from the South
22-24 January 2010 in Graz, Austria the President of NUMSA Cedric Sabelo Gina told delegates:
We are fully cognisant of the fact that any energy system that will have the interests of the poor as its core
objective, will be bitterly fought. We must therefore recognise that the struggle for this alternative global energy
system will lead to multiple initiatives amongst the oppressed and dominated strata. It is therefore our
responsibility that these multiple initiatives do not cancel but reinforce each other (Gina, 2010: 3)2.
Now that the Green Paper has been tabled for comment in the public domain the Union would like to
respond as follows:
Comment 1: Reduction of Greenhouse Emissions
NUMSA shares some of the sentiments expressed in the Green Paper:
a) of the need to reduce greenhouse emissions if we are to avoid the bio-physical destruction of
humanity and the planet
b) of the need to shift towards renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biofuels
Comment 2: Ideological Orientation
NUMSA believes that there is a growing debate on climate change that has captured the imagination of
people all over the world and that the debate isn’t simply about protecting endangered species or for
that matter resuscitating a patch of grass here and there, but that the environmental debate has now
grown beyond the limits of conservation. And if we are to open our “ecological lens” as Jacklyn Cock
appropriately put it, then we will find that the Green Paper lacks the form of ideological and political
content that the General Secretary of NUMSA once referred to when he addressed a climate change
conference under the theme “Cutting Emissions, Transforming Jobs” in Bad Orb, Germany (14-15
October 2009)3. In his address to delegates Comrade Jim argued that global capitalism and climate
change are closely linked:
We are convinced that any efforts to address the problems of Climate Change that do not fundamentally
challenge the system of global capitalism are bound not only to fail, but to generate new, larger and more
dangerous threats to human beings and our planet. … We believe that Climate Change has a direct link with,
and is caused by the global private profit system of capitalism. (Jim, 2009: 2)4
Organised by several powerful global unions (including the International Metalworkers Federation
(IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM),
European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF) and the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers'
Federation (EMCEF) ), the conference discussed a wide range of issues including:
• the environmental crisis is as much a failure of global capitalism as the recent and ongoing economic crisis
• good jobs and a clean environment go hand in hand, we will have both; or we will have neither
2
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
• developing countries must have their chance to develop. However, their development need not follow the same
harmful paths as it did in developed countries that caused the environmental crisis in the first place.
• trade unions must hold governments and employers to account, particularly regarding the social dimension of
sustainability
(Source: IMF http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=21012&l=2 )5
NUMSA calls on the architects of the Green Paper to include in its draft a critical perspective of our
energy problems vis-à-vis the world energy order. While the Green Paper calls for more alignment
across departments and the need to integrate climate change response strategies with industrial policy
(IPAP2), Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) and the Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity Generation
(IRP), there tends to be an over reliance on “market measures” to accelerate the country’s energy mix.
As northern governments (including the USA and EU) continue with their relentless campaign of
finding market related solutions to ward off the threat posed by global warming, progressive
environmentalists have sounded a warning against so called ‘green capitalism’.
NUMSA is of the view that the country should avoid the temptation of seeking market solutions to
what has now become an extremely serious problem that threatens the very fabric of our existence.
Our union is well aware of attempts to market instruments such as carbon trading and Clean
Development Mechanisms (CDM’s) by some of the country’s powerful trading conglomerates,
international investment institutions (World Bank) and their governments in an attempt to moderate
the adverse effects of high levels of carbon emissions and global warming.
Comment 3: On the use of Nuclear Energy
NUMSA notes that the Green Paper calls for the countrty to “explore and further develop the potential
for nuclear energy in terms of the national Nuclear Energy Policy” (Green Paper 2010: 14) The Union
has some serious reservations about the use of nuclear energy and believes that there has be more
engagement on the matter. In NUMSA 1999 commissioned the Energy and Development Research
Centre (EDRC) at the University of Cape Town to produce a user friendly book that clearly spelt out
the need for the country to invest in more friendly, renewable sources of energy and to make electricity
affordable and accessible to the majority of marginalized people in the country. Since then there has
been a growing interest in climate change and its impact on socio-economic development on the part
of the progressive trade union movement in the country. At NUMSA’s Mini National Congress in May
2009, and thereafter at COSATU’s 10th National Congress in September 2009, both the union and the
federation expressed the need for greater trade union involvement and visibility on matters related to
climate change and the protection of our natural environment. In line with its resolution on energy
matters NUMSA believes that it is imperative for the union to make informed decisions on
“international carbon-trading, global warming, nuclear energy and the use of alternate energy
resources such as solar, wind and wave powered energy”. (NUMSA Mini National Congress, 11-14
May 2009, p75-76)
Comment 4: Sustainable Development versus Environmental Justice
As NUMSA we believe that not only is a new global energy system in the making but that such a
system is a necessity. All evidence is pointing to the fact that the capitalist system (as we know it) has
reached a cul-de-sac. Not only is capitalism experiencing its most serious crisis since the 1930s, but
signs are there to show how catastrophic it would be to continue along the path in which fossil fuels
(such as coal, oil and natural gas) remain engines of economic development.
For Cock (2008) there are two powerful approaches that can be utilised towards the creation of a new
energy order: sustainable development and environmental justice. To simply focus on sustainable
development (as the Green Paper has done) without some perpective on redefining relations between
3
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
humans and nature, can be misleading. Besides any approach that sidelines environmental justice
could unleash a number of negative consequences and impede our social and economic development.
As Gina (2010: 3) argued the emergence of a new global energy system is not only a technical matter
but involves struggle “for who controls the sector and for what purpose energy is used.” Therefore it is
important to explore ideas about how production, distribution and consumption of energy “can come
under some form of collective control in order to satisfy human and ecological needs rather the needs
of the profit-driven world market” (Gina, 2010: 3) It is on this isssue of “collective control” that many
environmentalists have faltered. They thought that they could ultimately solve the problem of
environmental degradation within the market system. Although we believe on the need to fight for
improvements within the system of capitalism, as a union we believe that to save us from the
catastrophe facing us we have to bring production, distribution and consumption of energy under under
“some form of collective control” rather than “the profit-driven world market” (Gina, 2010: 3)
Comment 5: Water / Agriculture / Human Health
According to the Green Paper sectors such as Water, Agriculture and Human Health will be adversely
affected by climate change over the following decades, unless the government is in a position to
introduce a set of adaptation measures to counter the negative effects that climate change will have on
these sectors. However, these forecasts serve to remind us of problems that already exist for many
marginalised communities in our country: the problem of access to many of these services is
compounded by the fact that the majority of poor people in our country cannot afford basic services
such as water and electricity. In hindsight we have a much more complicated problem associated with
costs for basic services and unless government steps in and seriously addresses the problems of
poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment, the socio-economic fabric of our country will
deteriorate and levels of inequality will rise.
Just for the reference, NUMSA (1999), Marais (2001) and Bond (2007) have consistently argued that
the cost of basic services (as was the case in electricity) saw more people being disconnected from the
grid because they could not afford to pay for this basic service. Bond (2007: 38) described the situation
of electricity cut-offs as “an epidemic of disconnections”. The same scenario applies to water. So
having access is one thing! Being able to pay for these services is another!
For the Green Paper to make any significant impact on how best we protect and sustain our natural
resources such as water, and for the best possible means to safeguard our food supply and agriculture,
a whole range of issues other than just climate change, will have to be addressed. These include:
- addressing the land question (land reform, redistribution, restitution and expropriation)
- agrarian reform
- rural development
- affordable and accessible health care for all
NUMSA is of the view that you cannot possibly address the issue of climate change independently of
these other problems. Just as the paper seeks to align and integrate climate change mitigation strategies
with other forms of policy initiatives (e.g. IPAP2, Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) and the Integrated
Resource Plan for Electricity Generation), the issue of water, agriculture (food security) and human
health must be appraised in relation to other policies that have a bearing on our social well being.
Rural development cannot possibly take place in the absence of a progressive land redistribution
programme, and food security is of paramount importance provided people have the economic means
to grow and purchase food. Climate change adaptation strategies on their own will not solve our food
problems, and the Green Paper will have to weave in some of these issues (like the land question) and
place them firmly within the scope of our developmental agenda.
4
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
Comment 6: On the Green Economy and Green jobs
Several references have been made in the Green Paper to a shift to a green economy and the creation
of green jobs to complement the transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. As
NUMSA we recognise that this transition isn’t going to be easy and requires inputs from a number of
interest parties, civil society in general and labour in particular. The role of the state is central in this
transition and requires a ecological focus on all forms of economic activity, Huge investments in
renewable energy, technology and skills cannot be left in the hands of the private sector and there are
huge opportunities for the state to make meaningful interventions to reduce our carbon footprint and
boost our manufacturing potential (green jobs), transform the transport sector and initiate strategies
that will enhance and protect our food supply.
Comment 7: On Climate Change and its impact on International Trade
The Green Paper needs to say more on climate change and its impact on international trade. The use of
trade instruments like Non-Tariff Barriers (NTB’s), including Eco-protectionism will impact on trade
between the north and south and could be effectively used by developed countries to protect their
markets. Unless developing countries are able to keep pace with technological developments that are
ecologically friendly (technological and skills transfer) and sharpen their negotiation skills at the level
of the WTO and associated forums that promote international trade, our economies will still be
subordinate to those of developed, highly industrialised countries and instruments like EcoProtectionism could prejudice our trade and development interests.
Conclusion
The South African government must be bold enough and communicate a strong message to the United
Nations Conference on Climate Change that those greedy corporations that have polluted the
environment must be held accountable and called upon to bear the costs and clean up the mess that
they have created. Having said this, the South African government must:
•
send a clear signal to developed countries that South Africa will not become a dumping ground
for toxic and other forms of chemical waste that endangers our habitat
• avoid making commitments and entering into climate trade deals that serve to undermine the
socio-economic development of our country
• strengthen our capacity and increase investments in friendly and renewable sources of energy
like solar, water and wind powered energy
• lessen our dependency on coal
• encourage and promote more public debate on issues related to climate change and global
warming and popularize these debates on national television, the radio and through the use of
print media
In conclusion NUMSA calls on government to initiate a process with all stakeholders (social
movements, trade unions and NGO’s, etc.) and relevant government departments to develop policies
on climate change that are mutually compatible and consistent with the developmental goals of our
country, sustainable and above all capable of protecting the earth and its resources from pillaging
corporations and ruthless investors.
5
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete
Final 15 February 2011 / NUMSA submission national climate change response green paper 2010/
1
Media Statement Parliament to hold Public Hearings on Climate Change, Parliamentary Communication Services 12
November 2009
2
Gina, Cedric Sabelo 2010 ‘Experiences from the South’, paper presented at an International Seminar on Energy, Work,
Crisis and Resistance, 22-24 January 2010, Graz, Austria
3
Jim, I 2009 ‘Global Capitalism and the Challenge of Climate Change’, paper presented at the “Cutting Emissions,
Transforming Jobs” Climate Change Conference, Bad Orb, Germany 14-15 October 2009
http://www.imfmetal.org/files/09102010321266/Session_one_Irvin_Jim.pdf
4
Ibid p2
5
IMF 2009 ‘Cut Emissions and Transform Jobs’ http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=21012&l=2
References
1. Bond, P (2007) Dirty Politics: South African Energy. In: Bond, P et al (eds.) Climate Change,
Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments. Scottsville,
University of KwaZulu Natal Press p25-52
2. Cock, J (2008) The War Against Ourselves – Nature, Power and Justice. Johannesburg, Wits
University Press
3. Gina, C S (2010) ‘Experiences from the South’, paper presented at an International Seminar on
Energy, Work, Crisis and Resistance, 22-24 January 2010, Graz, Austria
4. Marais, H (2001) South Africa limits to change – The political economy of transition 2nd
edition. Cape Town, UCT Press
5. NUMSA (1999) Energy policy – The way forward for workers. Energy and Development
Research Centre, UCT, Elsie River, Fingerprint Co-operative.
6. NUMSA Mini National Congress, 11-14 May 2009, p75-76
7. Republic of South Africa (2010) National Climate Change Response Green Paper
6
1st
2nd
President – Cedric Gina;
Deputy President – Phil Bokaba;
Deputy President – Christine Olivier;
National Treasurer – Philemon Shiburi; General Secretary – Irvin Jim;
Deputy General Secretary – Karl Cloete