Applying ‘Climate Justice’ To Climate Change Is A Misnomer
The Wild Coast, South Africa, where offshore seismic exploration became the subject of a landmark Constitutional Court ruling. Photo by Joshua Gaunt / Unsplash.
‘Climate justice’ cannot be conflated with climate change. Yet that link is being propagated regarding the Concourt’s ruling against Shell’s Wild Coast fossil fuel exploration bid (The Mercury, August 21).
The main thrust of the Concourt’s Wild Coast ruling concerned the intense underwater noise generated by seismic surveys. Thus, its judgment was premised on the potential harm posed to the fragility of marine species and ecosystems with which local communities have a longstanding cultural and economic relationship. In other words, the judgment concerned the impact on the environment, not the climate.
Yet Dr Angela Van Der Berg of the University of the Western Cape wrongly hails the Concourt’s ruling as “the first ever climate case to reach the Concourt.” Underwater exploration anywhere in the world is an environmental issue that has nothing to do with climate.
It is appalling to note how anything connected with the environment is now hailed as a ‘climate’ issue, which now warrants ‘climate justice.’ It beggars belief that people who ought to know better are ignoring incontrovertible evidence that climate change has nothing to do with fossil fuel emissions or exploration.
Science and history show that climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred for millennia, long before fossil fuels were exploited. Cooling and warming periods are the result of variations in the Earth’s elliptical path around the Sun and the tilt of its axis.
Thus, UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ reference to high temperatures as a ‘season of boiling’ constituting a ‘climate crisis,’ is sheer alarmism intended to motivate the falsehood tht ‘green energy transition’ can abate the ‘crisis.’ Europe provides a grim testimony to the cost of the green transition: mass de-industrialisation, unaffordable, intermittent electricity, increased economic hardship, and unemployment.
Nonetheless, as the captives of green globalism, the ANC is content to learn nothing from Europe’s sorry plight. The investment of R20 billion in renewable energy attests to that (Business Report, August 24). The reason is simple: follow the money. BEE cartel deals in wind turbine and solar panel manufacturing and sales are juicy prospects. Even better, there are carbon taxes and fines of up to R10 million for non-compliance with the contrived carbon emissions targets.
Until legislation is written on the understanding that carbon emissions do not influence climate variations, the application of ‘climate justice’ to environmental issues is a misnomer.
