Friends of the Earth South Africa appeal to President Jacob Zuma on fracking

Friends of the Earth South Africa and groundWork issued a letter to President Jacob Zuma opposing the lifting of the fracking moratorium, citing environmental risks, lack of public consultation, and the potential for increased greenhouse gas emissions.

• Friends of the Earth South Africa and groundWork express concern that the South African government is accelerating the fracking process by lifting the moratorium without conducting transparent impact studies or sufficient stakeholder engagement. The Minister of Trade and Industry indicated that shale gas exploration would be authorized before the elections of the following year.
• The authors argue that promises of hundreds of thousands of jobs, based on research by Royal Dutch Shell, exploit the poor, who they claim will not receive these jobs nor be able to afford the resulting electricity, thereby widening socio-economic inequalities.
• The document highlights the climate impact of fracking, noting that methane gas is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. It cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stating that methane is 86 times more damaging than CO2 over a 20-year period.
• The authors state that fracking threatens areas like the Karoo and KwaZulu-Natal, which have potential for agriculture, tourism, and alternative energy. They further claim that South Africa lacks the ability to enforce legislation to protect the environment from multinationals like Shell, which they associate with abuses in Nigeria, America, and Ireland.

APA

Khanyile, S. (2013). Friends of the Earth South Africa appeal to President Jacob Zuma on fracking. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/friends-of-the-earth-south-africa-appeal-to-president-jacob-zuma-on-fracking/

Chicago

Khanyile, Siziwe. Friends of the Earth South Africa appeal to President Jacob Zuma on fracking. Friends of the Earth International, 2013. https://www.foei.org/friends-of-the-earth-south-africa-appeal-to-president-jacob-zuma-on-fracking/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Khanyile |first1=Siziwe |title=Friends of the Earth South Africa appeal to President Jacob Zuma on fracking |publisher=Friends of the Earth International |date=21 October 2013 |url=https://www.foei.org/friends-of-the-earth-south-africa-appeal-to-president-jacob-zuma-on-fracking/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{khanyile2013friends, author = {Khanyile, Siziwe}, title = {{Friends of the Earth South Africa appeal to President Jacob Zuma on fracking}}, publisher = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2013}, month = oct, url = {https://www.foei.org/friends-of-the-earth-south-africa-appeal-to-president-jacob-zuma-on-fracking/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }