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Urgent Call for South Africa to Support and Join Global Efforts to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

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One of the Co-Founders and Spokesperson from Oceans Not Oil, Janet Solomon has launched a petition encouraging South Africans to phase out fossil fuel.

If you recognise the need without needing to scroll on then CLICK HERE to Sign the petition addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

If you still need convincing then read on….

Geopolitical Crisis and Fossil Fuel Dependence

Triggered by escalating military conflict between the United States of America, Israel, and Iran—and the resulting global scramble for oil and gas—the world is once again on the brink of an energy crisis. South Africa remains one of Israel’s largest suppliers of coal, even as it has taken a legal stance against atrocities in Palestine—revealing a stark contradiction between its foreign policy commitments and its fossil fuel trade. War, fuel shortages, and rising prices—already being felt by South Africans—are the true costs of fossil fuel dependence.

Despite devastating floods, droughts, cyclones, wildfires, sea-level encroachment and biodiversity loss, the South African government continues to rely on dangerous, ageing fossil fuel refineries and failing infrastructure—knowingly exposing fence-line communities to toxic pollution that drives respiratory disease, cancers including leukaemia, and premature death—while advancing offshore oil and gas expansion under the false promise that more extraction will solve the very crises fossil fuel dependence creates.

Recent International Criminal Court cases recognise that continued fossil fuel expansion, and ongoing subsidisation, is contributing to climate harm constituting a violation of international law and human rights.

Countries across the Global South, including Kenya, are stepping forward in global efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. The First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels marks a critical moment to coordinate this shift. At the same time, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty is gaining traction, with at least 18 national governments already engaging in efforts to advance a just transition through a binding international framework to phase out fossil fuels.

South Africa must step forward and take a leading role in this global transition.

What We Ask of Government

Key actions needed:

  • Send an official delegation and public commitment to the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, with a mandate to adopt clear outcomes.
  • Publish a national fossil fuel phase-out plan within 12 months, with legally binding targets and deadlines.
  • Place an immediate halt on new offshore oil and gas licences and approvals.
  • Redirect public funding away from fossil fuels by ending subsidies and shifting that money into climate mitigation, renewable energy and public infrastructure.
  • Rapidly scale up socially owned and community-based renewable energy systems.
  • Expand and modernise the national grid through large-scale public investment to connect underserved communities and enable community-owned renewable energy to supply power locally and feed surplus electricity into the grid on fair, guaranteed terms.
  • Launch a national Climate Jobs Programme within 2 years, led by the state and shaped by workers and communities, creating large-scale, decent work in climate mitigation and resilience, socially owned renewable energy, public services, and ecosystem restoration.
  • A 1.5°C overshoot is inevitable this decade, with RSA facing 3°C warming. We demand the country be placed on an emergency footing through a societal driven Climate Emergency Social Contract – a democratically shaped, justice-centred agreement to reorganise state action at emergency speed, to confront climate breakdown while transforming inequality.

Much of South Africa’s climate response has amounted to window dressing, while coal, oil, and gas continue to dominate. Viable alternatives already exist. This is not a question of technical challenge but of political will, with real consequences for whether people experience deepening crisis or tangible improvements in their daily lives.

We demand leadership that delivers real jobs and a real transition energy security. We ask the South African government to act now.

Sign this petition to demand action—not promises.

The following organisations stand in solidarity with this demand:

  • Oceans Not Oil Coalition
  • Climate Justice Charter Movement
  • Active Citizens Movement
  • Greenpeace Africa Durban Local Group
  • Sustaining the Wild Coast
  • Extinction Rebellion Cape Town
  • Mycelium Media Colab
  • Co-operative and Policy Center
  • South African Food Sovereignty Campaign

Janet Solomon Short Bio:

Janet Solomon is a dedicated South African environmental activist, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and visual artist. She is best known as a co-founder and leading voice of Oceans Not Oil (ONO), a coalition dedicated to opposing offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction along South Africa’s coastline.

Solomon helped establish Oceans Not Oil in 2017 in response to the South African government’s accelerated push for offshore fossil fuel development under Operation Phakisa. As a spokesperson for the campaign, she has been instrumental in mobilizing public resistance against major corporations like Shell and TotalEnergies, particularly during the high-profile legal battles to stop seismic blasting surveys off the Wild Coast. Her work focuses on defending marine ecosystems, protecting the livelihoods of small-scale fisherfolk, and advocating for a climate-just energy transition.

Solomon utilizes her background in the arts to give voice to environmental concerns. Her 2018 documentary, Becoming Visible, investigated the links between seismic surveys and unusual marine mammal strandings on the East Coast. The film became a powerful campaigning tool, exposing loopholes in environmental legislation and challenging the state’s narrative on capitalist extractivism.

Prior to her filmmaking and activism, Solomon had a distinguished career as a painter and photographer, holding numerous solo exhibitions. Her art has long engaged with themes of environmental disruption, alienation, and human-animal relationships.

She holds a Master of Arts in Fine Art with distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand. Currently, she is a PhD research fellow in the Emancipatory Futures Studies Programme at the same institution, where her research focuses on decolonial, eco-feminist documentary practice and ocean-centered alternatives to fossil fuel dependence.

And, if you have got this far then you may as well go on and CLICK HERE to Sign the petition.

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