Download PDFOn 22 April 2023, the Climate Justice Coalition and Cry of the Xcluded held a mass meeting with youth, community organisations and trade unions such as the Socialist Youth Movement, Southern African Green Revolutionary Council (SAGRC), Sisonke Revolutionary Movement and the United Domestic Workers Association, amongst others.
The aim of the meeting was to get organisations together to discuss and plan a way forward to address the issues of loadshedding and climate change. Different organisations shared presentations and ideas on how to approach the problem. There were presentations on the conditions of Eskom and how it got to where it is now, what the causes and outcomes are, from CoX. There was also a presentation on the plan for climate justice from the Climate Justice Coalition. This included ideas of how the organisations can work together to bring about the change they want.
The program set for the day also reached for an outcome or feedback from the different organisations to say what a working class response should be towards loadshedding and the climate crisis as well as the resources they need to accommodate their response to these issues.
This also included identifying the organisations that they could potentially work with and how they could link up and work with these organisations to initiate the working class response.
Some of the people that had attended this meeting are people whose work is directly affected by the loadshedding and climate crisis.
Sizakhele Makhosi from Witbank in Kwa-Zulu Natal, who is a farmer, said that water and electricity is expensive, and she needs solar panels to help her pump water easily and plant her vegetables.
She said that she has come in solidarity to the climate and loadshedding crisis as it affects her daily. “It affects the rain, and the sun dries the crops and plants,” said Makhosi.
Jabulile Nkosi, who is unemployed and is also from KwaZulu-Natal said, “Since I am here to learn, I will take the information back to my community and share it with them as they do not have this information.”
The Climate Justice Coalition and Cry of the Xcluded had this as their first step to their plan for a Green New Eskom to take on both the climate and loadshedding crisis.
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