News

Ministry for Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Embargo: 11:30 on Tuesday, 18 October 2005

Opening speech by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs & Tourism, at the National Consultative Conference on Climate Change in Gauteng on 18 October 2005

National Consultative Conference: A New Approach to Climate Change

Introduction
Five years ago, at the start of the new Millennium, a small baby girl named Rositha Chirindza was born in Mozambique. What made her birth unusual was the fact that, at the moment of her delivery, her mother Cecilia was sheltering on a flimsy platform, built hastily in a tree. One month ago, six year old Ariel Valteau was reunited with her family, a week after she had been separated from them in the American city of New Orleans. One week ago rescue workers in the village of Santa Tecla were still searching for the bodies of ten year old Alejando Gonzalez and his four year old sister Francisca believed to have been killed in one of more than 200 deadly mudslides to hit El Salvador.

Apart from their innocence and their youth we should be asking what it is that these four children have in common. What golden thread binds together four young people so widely separated by language, geography, and nationality? The answer is as simple as it is frightening weather events so extreme that they have shaken the foundations of our global society. Rositha and her family came to represent the more than 2 million Mozambicans who lost their homes and livelihoods in the devastation of the floods in 2000. Ariel was one of more than 2500 children reported missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Alejando and Francisca are amongst the estimated 1200 deaths caused by Hurricane Stan in El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras.

If there is one global truth rapidly emerging from the chaos of our changing weather patterns, it is that no nation, no community and no person can rest assured of their security.

Conference Aims to Produce SA National Action Plan
In the light of such directly observable changes and the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence which is being presented and reviewed at our parallel Science Conference, this National Consultative Conference takes on added significance. Our discussions about the most appropriate response by South Africa to global climate change are less and less about abstract concepts, and more and more about the lives and future welfare of our people.

This is why our Department is coordinating the efforts across all Departments to draft, consult, and guide through Cabinet our National Climate Change Response Strategy. It is our hope that the outcome of this conference will lay the foundation for the development of concrete National Action Plans, to translate this strategy into mainstream Government policy, daily action in the private sector, and positive changes in daily household routines.

Most Vulnerable Nations Least Able to Afford Climate Change Impacts
One of the staggering facts about the recent devastation of Hurricane Katrina in the United States is the estimated cost of the recovery and rebuilding efforts. The conservative estimate is that America will spend more than $200 billion. For perspective, compare this with the situation of the South Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, which averages an altitude of only 1 meter above sea level. The leaders of Tuvalu have estimated that, should sea levels continue to rise at current rates due to global warming, their country will be largely underwater within 50 years. In spite of the fact that Tuvalu is one of the nations of the world most at-risk from climate change it is also amongst the least able to adapt or prepare for it with a total Gross Domestic Product of less than $13 million about 17 000 times less than the costs to America of Katrina’s devastation.

This example is instructive because it brings home the point that the nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change – and South Africa is one of them – are also the ones least able to afford the added risks. The least developed countries especially in Africa – and the Small Island Developing States, cannot bear the brunt of these costs. What is needed, as a next step, in addition to the other policies and measures under discussion within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and under the Kyoto Protocol, is global commitment and mechanisms to provide new and additional finance, capacity and technology, sourced primarily from developed countries, to assist affected countries and populations to cope with the consequences of climate change.

A New Approach to Climate Change for the Developing World
The first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, following its coming into force, will be held in Montreal in November this year. The meeting will also mark the opening of talks about post-2012 commitments for the developed countries bound by Kyoto. It is important for developing countries like India, China, Brazil and South Africa to acknowledge that we have a duty to do more to address climate change. We must use this conference to reflect on what kind of policies and measures are practical, affordable, and consistent with our development path.

We fully support the fundamental premise of the UNFCCC – that all countries must take responsibility. In doing so we emphasise the agreement that developed countries, who bear most responsibility for causing climate change and who have the resources, must take the lead in implementing solutions. We believe that our own commitments may take a different form to those of developed nations. Our message is that we stand ready to do more to de-carbonise our development, but that we will expect, from developed countries, a commitment to take the lead on deeper emission reductions, new and additional financial support, improved technology transfer and capacity building. I want also to emphasise that when we engage on climate change at the international level, we will work to shift the current bias from a focus primarily on mitigation, to one which gives substantial content and resources to adaptation measures.

While we stand ready to do more, our national circumstances must be acknowledged. Any future commitments for developing countries must be consistent with their capabilities, their sustainable development objectives, and take into account the current structure of their economies. Such commitments must ultimately map out a proactive, sustainable and equitable growth path which meets our objectives to eradicate poverty while at the same addressing climate change. To assist South Africa in preparing for such commitments, Cabinet has approved a process of scenario-planning which will, within the next year, formulate and examine future scenarios to proactively shape our longer term domestic policy and capacity-building.

Multilateralism, Partnerships and Law Hold Key to Reducing Emissions
Our Government has made a choice to be guided by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence that indicates climate change is intensifying and that human activity is contributing to the problem. Rather than engaging in futile academic debate with fringe scientists and climate skeptics, it is our responsibility to focus instead on how best to react. We must mitigate against climate change and adapt our economies to enable communities to face the reality of changing weather patterns.

In terms of the international response, our first choice is clearly the multi-lateral approach but we recognise that partnerships can also add value as long as they don’t undermine that approach. We must work to build a more inclusive international regime that addresses a broad spectrum of concrete global actions in addition to the Kyoto mechanisms which will also bring major developed country emitters like the USA and Australia on board.

In our efforts to address climate change from within South Africa limited as our total contribution to global emissions may be – our first choice as Government will always be to work with communities and business in a cooperative partnership, especially in implementing our multilateral obligations. The agreement signed yesterday with Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), to bring about voluntary Greenhouse Gas emission reporting as part of a national inventory, is a powerful example of such cooperation.

One of the aims of this conference is to focus government and our private sector to do more. In the area of electricity generation, for instance, ESKOM announced at the WSSD the aspiration to reduce the percentage of coal in our energy mix by 10% by 2012 an ambitious but critical goal. The challenge is to shift even more significantly from our current levels of 92% coal dependence for electricity. Whilst significant shifts in this direction will require major domestic and international commitment and investment to achieve, it is precisely this kind of aspiration that we should be discussing in our deliberations.

Partnership and voluntary action alone may not be sufficient however. We must also open the dialogue about how best to use existing legislation in support of our climate change responses. The new Air Quality Act for instance provides a number of tools that have been designed to assist us in improving the atmospheric health of our nation. Options such as the designation of controlled emitters, controlled fuels and priority pollutants must be examined in the climate change context if we are to give the force of law to our Climate Change Response Strategy.

Conclusion
I would like to take this opportunity to thank every person, organisation and institution who has made this ground-breaking event possible especially my Cabinet colleagues who have served with us on the Inter-Ministerial Committee responsible for this event.

It is now my distinct privilege to introduce our keynote speaker, which provides me with the opportunity to pay tribute to her leadership during her tenure as Minister of Minerals and Energy. It was she who led the charge by finalising our White Paper on Renewable Energy. It was she who signed off on our national energy efficiency strategy; set cleaner fuel specifications; and guided our Designated National Authority for carbon trading through Cabinet. Her elevation to the position of Deputy President in June has catapulted our energy and climate change priorities to the highest echelons of Government leadership. It gives me great pleasure to ask you to join me in welcoming our Honourable Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, to deliver the keynote address of this conference.

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