The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Glenn Ashton -
Our economic system is premised on the notion of endless growth. Its unintentional manifestations include global warming, dwindling resources, proliferating pollution, the accelerating extinction of species, water and food shortages, all set against the backdrop of a burgeoning global population.
We live in an era that has generated more wealth than any previous known civilisation, yet remain surrounded by inequality. The market has failed to deliver on the promises of its supporters....
Saliem Fakir -
The draft twenty-year plan for electricity generation, also called the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2010, was released a few weeks ago for public comment. The IRP process is all but a fait accompli. But what goes into the plan will determine the future of South Africa’s energy mix for the next two decades.
The energy choices available to us are between coal, nuclear, gas, hydro and other renewables.
With a projected GDP growth rate of 4.6% over the next 20 years, South Africa will...
Saliem Fakir -
What is uncertain for one is also not certain for the other.
Following last year’s Copenhagen Climate Summit, the five days of negotiations in Bonn last week in preparation for the big climate change meeting in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year, has been met by a profound display of disinterest.
Every step forward has been replied with a two-steps backward intervention by countries that hold the key to global action on climate. It looks like Copenhagen’s indistinct...
Gro Harlem Brundtland, the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change, contends that strong corporate lobbies are undermining scientific evidence in support of climate change. She argues further that they are being listened to and getting away with influencing the climate change debate because they dedicate a huge amount of resources, money and thinking towards trying to influence the world in a negative way. She equates the behaviour of the "anti-climate change" lobby to the...
One of the key initiatives to emerge from the Bolivian 'World Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth' attended by 15,000 delegates from around the world is the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth'. South African environmental lawyer, Cormac Cullinan, arrived at the summit this week with the draft declaration that has formed the basis of the discussions in Tiquipaya. He explains its purpose. The conference, which has been very poorly covered by the...
Michelle Pressend -
“Climate change cannot be addressed by half measures,” argues Pablo Solón Romero, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), in a recent article published by the UK’s Guardian Newspaper. The crucial point he tries to get across is, “we can't make compromises with nature.”
Romero made the statement in the run up to Bolivia’s forthcoming ‘Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth’, scheduled to take...
