What to say to people who think we can’t live without fossil fuels

South Africans often challenge Fossil Free South Africa about our focus on coal, oil, and gas companies.

“How can you talk? You don’t drive an electric car, so you’re also responsible for climate change along with the rest of us,” is the common refrain. Or, “It’s unfair to demonise an entire industry.”

These are responses we’ve heard over and over again, often from highly educated people who haven’t yet digested the salient facts about the fossil fuel industry’s role in, and response to, the climate crisis. It shows how well our South African society has been sold the myth that we need fossil fuels to maintain life as we know it, and for the development and jobs that our people so sorely need.

At our latest AGM, which was also our 10th birthday celebration, FFSA director David Le Page outlined some realities in an address titled “Forget stopping climate change. We need to stop the fossil fuel industry.” Here are those important facts, which we hope you can use when you have the same discussion with others:

A mere 57 fossil fuel companies are responsible for a whopping 80% of greenhouse gases emitted since 2016, the year after the Paris Agreement on controlling global heating.

These state-controlled corporations and shareholder-owned multinationals are the leading drivers of the climate crisis, according to the Carbon Majors Database, which is compiled by world-renowned researchers.

These companies have been making record profits in recent years. But instead of using these profits to transition to renewable energy investments − and despite global pledges to cut greenhouse gases − most of these entities have been increasing their coal, oil and gas production since 2016.

Their continued expansion comes as global heating is not under control, but accelerating, to the extent that the world has already become 1.5C hotter on average than pre-industrial times.

Breaching 1.5°C risks triggering multiple climate change tipping points that will cause irreversible damage, and every fraction of a degree increases the risk.

Fossil fuel companies, among them Shell and BP, are backpedalling on their commitments to invest in renewable energy and decarbonise. The only fossil fuel company known to have made the transition fully Danish company Ørsted, whose then-CEO said their transition was “100% replicable”. But it’s just not happening elsewhere, probably due to those record profits and shareholder pressure to keep achieving them.

Bottom line: this is an industry gone rogue, causing unprecedented destruction. There is no way to stop global heating without reining in the fossil fuel industry.

To cite carbon emissions as the cause of the climate crisis and ignore the role of the fossil fuel industry, as David put it at the AGM, is like “saying that bombs are the reason for the suffering in Gaza, not attacks by the Israeli military.”

In short, as NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmas has said: “We are losing the war against the fossil fuel industry very badly, due largely to the fact that most people still don’t even know they’re in a war with the fossil fuel industry.”

We also believe it’s profoundly misguided to imagine that the very same extractive-exploitative economic paradigm that has given us a host of problems − climate breakdown, the many negative “externalities” of the fossil fuel industry, and deep global and national inequality − will suddenly deliver jobs and prosperity. This is simply impossible, as the negative costs of the industry long ago expanded past the ability of Earth’s “natural infrastructure” to absorb them.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and every action counts. Take just one minute to add your voice, helping us shift power away from the fossil fuel industry and towards a more humane and sustainable future:

• Sign a letter to your asset manager calling for a fund that supports ethical and sustainable investments, rather than the fossil fuel industry, here.

• Support our Fossil Ad Ban’s call for the banning of all fossil fuel industry advertisements, to stop the pervasive greenwashing that gives the industry social credibility, here.

• If you would like to give us your thoughts or feedback, we’re keen to hear from you! Please email us at hello@fossilfreesa.org.za and we’ll get back to you soon. We look forward to your thoughts.