By Tigere Chagutah
Celebrated as a leader in Africa’s quest for low carbon, climate resilient development, South Africa also holds the dubious honour of being the continent’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.
South Africa is singularly responsible for two percent of the 3,8 percent of carbon emissions that Africa contributes to global emissions. At 10 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, the country’s per capita emissions are 43 percent higher than the global average.
Forward thinking…
Much to its credit, South Africa has, in its ambitious national climate framework, potentially set a model framework for other African nations’ climate change policies.
The second National Climate Change Summit held in March 2009 set in motion a policy development process that should culminate in a Policy White Paper on climate change by 2010, and see the translation of this policy into a legislative, regulatory and fiscal package by 2012. Integral to this policy process, are aims for the country to follow a peak, stabilisation and decline greenhouse gas trajectory over the next 60 years. This means that emissions should peak during the period 2025 to 2035, stabilise for up to ten years and then decline in absolute terms there after.
These policy decisions have been taken notwithstanding the fact that the country is not yet under any legal obligation to reduce emissions.
Championing the Southern climate cause…
On the international scene, South Africa has been playing an influential role as a developing country in international climate change negotiations.
South Africa has consistently led the charge for rich nations to bear the burden of concessions in a post-2012 treaty. According to the South African government, “The developed world is historically the main contributor to the levels of green house gases in the atmosphere and thus has to bear the greatest responsibility to take urgent and real measures to address climate change.”*
Speaking at the European Union Energy and Environment Ministers meeting, in Sweden in July 2009, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica stressed that the real debate for the upcoming Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen is mainly on two issues; firstly the targets for reductions and secondly, the mechanisms to fund climate change programmes.
South Africa has argued that a central part of a post-Kyoto agreement would be the requirement for all developed countries to take the lead by making deep legally binding quantified emission reduction commitments. In turn, developing countries would undertake mitigation actions in a manner that is appropriate to their national circumstances, sustainable development objectives and the imperative for poverty eradication and economic growth.
The South African government has called for the international community to make commitments for new, “massively” up-scaled and predictable financial, technical, and institutional and human capacity building support to enable implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions. In addition, the financial support needed for implementation of a comprehensive response to climate change should not affect current development assistance levels.
South Africa has also expressed its dissatisfaction with the current governance of international support and has called for greater involvement of developing nations and greater clarity in the management of climate funds, should such financial support materialise.
Towards Copenhagen…
Going towards Copenhagen 2009, expectations of an effective deal have been dampened by diverging interests, not just between developed and developing countries but also within the groups.
For instance while developed countries are more united in their demand for emphasis to be put on mitigation options, developing nations stress the importance of garnering support for adaptation. Within the developing countries’ group i.e. the Group of 77 and China (G77/China), there are even more fault lines.
Three divergent interests threaten to scupper the attainment of a common position for developing countries at the climate change negotitions, namely: the dependence of the OPEC countries within this group on oil revenue; the reliance of the majority of states on agriculture; and the small island states’ fundamental concern with the threat to their geographical survival posed by sea level rise.
Currently, the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) are placing adaptation as top priority, with oil producing countries viewing response measures as top priority. The emerging economies, or rapidly industrialising developing countries, like South Africa, on the other hand, place technology transfer at the top of their agenda.
Negativity has also been driven in part by concern over the lack of a clear US position on climate change. Suggestions have been made that the lack of a clear position on climate change from the Obama administration is placing a Copenhagen deal in jeopardy because many countries are waiting to see the extent of US commitments before formulating their own positions.
Another bone of contention is what the then South African Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, described as an attempt by the US to “create a new category (of major emitters among developing countries) on top of Annex 1 and non-Annex 1” categories in the Kyoto protocol through a proposal for a Major Emitters Forum. Such a move would effectively give big developing nations such as Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, China and South Africa added responsibility.
In the absence of universal consensus in Copenhagen, delegates at the second National Climate Conference agreed that South Africa should follow national action rather than accept an agenda that is forced upon them through a compromise Copenhagen agreement. According to Deputy Foreign Affairs Director General Sandea de Wet such action would consider South Africa’s own energy needs in pursuit of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly developmental path without compromising local immediate requirements for poverty alleviation and development.
This is where South Africa faces its challenge.
Domestic problems…
Although South Africa is officially committed to a 15 percent renewable energy target by 2020, progress on the ground is painfully slow. The fact that South Africa has the cheapest coal-fired energy in the world, at 22 cents per kilowatt/hour, compared to solar energy at 46 cents and wind energy at 57 cents certainly has not helped matters.
For instance, the government has sanctioned state utility Eskom's plans to build a new coal-fired power station by 2013 and bring two obsolete ones back into production. Sasol, a coal-to-liquids company which produces almost 72 million tons of carbon dioxide gas a year, and whose Secunda plant is the biggest single carbon dioxide gas emitter on the planet, plans to construct a new 80,000 barrels per day coal-to-liquid plant in the northern Limpopo province. These plans have been described by environmental group Earthlife as a mockery of the government’s climate change mitigation plans.
Continued dependence on, and further development of coal energy does not augur well for South Africa given that with the existing energy mix emissions are expected to continue increasing by at least 30 percent.
Critics have questioned the viability of South Africa’s ‘strategic’ mitigation options such as Carbon Capture and Storage technology (CCS) and nuclear energy development.
A paper 'Carbon Capture and Storage in South Africa' by leading researchers at the University of Cape Town’s Energy Research Centre concludes that CCS does not seem to support the central sustainable development aims of South Africa in a way that other options such as gas and renewable energy supplies may. It adds that CCS technology may even conflict with national development goals. The paper attributes its conclusions to the high cost of CCS and the fact that the benefits from international carbon trade are highly unlikely to offset the costs of the technology, even in the long run. Further, the paper warns that the high cost of CCS would be passed onto the consumer through increases in the cost of energy services.
Curiously, the government has laid down the adoption of CCS technology as its proviso for allowing further development and construction of coal powered generators. For instance, Sasol’s expansion hinges on a planned response which relies heavily on the technology of carbon dioxide capture and storage.
Criticisms against the development of nuclear energy range from its covert use by the past Apartheid government to the suggestion that “revival of the industry would be nothing more than an expensive experiment with tax-payers’ money”. Critics say plans to develop nuclear energy should be judged against the background of a dying industry worldwide, threat to human health and safety, and long-term environmental contamination. Ominously, however, the recently appointed Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica has put her weight firmly behind the adoption of both CCS and nuclear energy development – which she has described as the “cleanest” large scale energy option for South Africa.
Tigere Chagutah is a PhD Candidate in Communication Studies at North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus – South Africa. He currently works for the regional office Southern Africa of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Cape Town.
Notes:
* Keynote address by the Director-General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba at the Climate Response Policy Summit, Gallagher Estate, Midrand, 5 March 2009. Delivered on his request by Adv Sandea de Wet, Chief State Law Adviser (International Law) and Acting Deputy Director General: Multilateral of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 09 August 2009.