WCape leads climate protest
2009-12-09 22:38
Cape Town - Scores of Western Cape provincial employees and politicians took part in a lunchtime picket on Wednesday to show their support for the fight against climate change.
Among them were Premier Helen Zille and several members of her cabinet, all wearing green shirts.
"It's important to take symbolic stands at important times," she said.
"Every one of us must be aware that energy must be used sparingly, that we all have a personal responsibility to protect the environment."
The picket, outside the provincial legislature in Wale Street, came as delegates to the Copenhagen conference on climate change sought to draw up a blueprint for tackling manmade greenhouse gases.
Gas-guzzling vehicles
Zille said SA should move away from "these huge gas-guzzling vehicles that have such dangerous emissions" to more environmentally friendly models, such as the hybrid electric car she used when she was mayor of Cape Town.
"I'm also working very hard toward utilising fabulous resources such as the sun, which is beating down on us today, our wave energy which is amongst the best in the world, [and] our wind energy, of which there is no shortage in Cape Town and the Western Cape.
"All of these must be harnessed, because these sources of energy could in the future be as important as oil and gas has been in the past."
An organiser of the event, staffer in the premier's office Carolin Gomulia, said the stand was an attempt "to show we can do something on a small scale".
She and a group of co-workers had embarked on an initiative to raise environmental awareness among their colleagues through low-cost projects.
They had started a recycling project that in a month had already leaped from 800kg of discarded office paper to 1300kg.
"We believe if people start understanding what their role is in terms of the environment, they will want to be part of these efforts," she said.
- SAPA