More than a hundred protesters gathered on Friday 12th November at the Liesbeek River to mark the end of COP26. Leaders from Khoi indigenous groups, civic activists, community members, educators and learners, former UDF activists, residents, young and older, joined together to make it clear that the River Club redevelopment is an environmentally destructive development that will contribute to climate harms.

The COP26 was described by climate activist Greta Thunberg as a stage where world leaders once again gave “beautiful speeches” and announced “fancy commitments and targets” while “behind the curtains governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action.”

However, it wasn’t only politicians who buffed up their climate credentials. Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon and the richest man in the world, used the COP26 to announce a pledge of $2 billion to fund efforts to protect the environment. According to Bezos, this money will “help restore nature and transform food systems.” What exactly do we make of a global commitment “to restore nature” when Amazon decided to locate its headquarters on an environmentally sensitive floodplain sacred to the Khoi people here in Cape Town?

The River Club redevelopment will infill the floodplain, bury a river and place 150 000 square meters of concrete on the site. The City of Cape Town’s Environmental Management Department opposed the Environmental Authorisation on the basis that the development “does not give due consideration to climate change impacts and resilience” and disregarded what was needed to keep “waterways and floodplains open and unobstructed to provide resilience to flood risk in heavy rainfall events, and recharging ground water and the aquifer through natural percolation.”

It’s not the first time that Bezos has professed a concern about the planet’s future. And it’s a concern that his many critics believe rings hollow.

Anand Giridharadas, author of "Winner Takes All," argues that this talk of changing the world for the better through philanthropy is a "fake change" that elites offer "to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus, their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm."

It’s hard to disagree with that conclusion if you consider that

• Amazon and Bezos were well aware that the River Club redevelopment was bad for climate change as well as destructive of Khoi heritage. We wrote to Bezos twice (March and October 2020) and to Andy Jassy (June 2021) to alert them. We even couriered it to Amazon in October 2020 so they can’t deny knowing the issues. The publicity around the appeals was widely covered including the objections by the City’s own Environmental Management Department against the Environmental Authorisation on the basis of many concerns, including failure to comply with Climate Change policies and likely adverse impacts on climate change resilience.
• Amazon had numerous other offers for locating the Amazon HQ but chose the River Club over and above the other sites, for reasons known only to Amazon. Choosing a site of significant sensitivity that would reduce climate change resilience is contrary to any claim to “restore nature.” Notably, the specifications issued by Amazon for the site in 2018 did not mention climate resilience as a criterion for successful redevelopment. In other words, Amazon were never sufficiently concerned to insist the site promote climate resilience.
• Research on the establishment of urban development corridors and Transport Oriented Development (TOD) routes indicates that mixed use and higher densities need to be within a walkable distance of a corridor. But the River Club is not a site strategically located close to a development corridor. It is far from public transport routes. Reliance on our decrepit and unreliable train transport system is implausible, never mind the walking distance from the site to the Observatory Metro station. This means that motorised transport is going to be added to the grid. And the fact that Amazon seemingly anticipates needing thousands of parking bays (their proposal specification required “a minimum of 4 parking bays per 100 SM GLA for Office use, and 2 parking bays per 100 SM GLA for Customer Support”) belies any real commitment to reducing carbon emissions.  
• Bizarrely, the Specialist Report that the developers commissioned after redevelopment appeals had pointed out that there was no climate change assessment makes no mention of these parking bays or vehicular transport impacts on carbon emissions. The Report simply regurgitates the myth that the site is strategically located and apes the developers’ unfounded assertion that the development is intended to support and encourage the use of public transport.

So, there’s no doubt that we need to continue resisting this redevelopment. It’s not only unlawful for failing to protect the intangible heritage of the site, but it is bad for our climate resilience.

To support out court case, we need your financial support to interdict the building and get a proper plan in place that will make this a heritage precinct. We are scheduled to be in court on November 24th and 25th.  Please consider assisting us with the legal fees. You can contribute at our fundraising site or directly via EFT here.

For more information, please visit our website [LL14]  and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction.