South Africa and climate change

1
South Africa and climate change

• South Africa is the largest CO2 emitter on the
  African continent, 12th largest emitter in the
  world
• Moral responsibility to act decisively on climate
  change
• National Climate Change Response Policy is
  fundamental to driving this action forward
• It must be strong, ambitious, detailed and must
  drive the significant uptake of renewable energy
  and energy efficiency
• It must be the cornerstone of a coordinated,
  coherent, efficient and effective response to
  climate change
• And other plans (like the IRP) must be adjusted
  to fit in with the National Climate Change
  Response Policy

www.greenpeaceafrica.org
2
Introductory sections of the Green Paper

• Lack of detail on how to deal with the key issues
• No concrete targets and timelines
• Vagueness means that alignment with other
  policies, legislation and regulation difficult
• Long term goal of limiting global temp rise to at
  least 2ºC but the African position is 1.5ºC?
• Fair contribution to the global effort vs
  leadership role
• Precautionary principle definition
• No reference to the massive/ambitious uptake of
  renewable energy (RE)
• Need numbers/targets for deviation from business
  as usual
• Carbon intensive industries must be supported to
  adapt, not given special treatment

www.greenpeaceafrica.org
3
Policy approaches and actions

• Agriculture
• Significant contributor to GHG emissions
• Much more emphasis on ecological farming is
  needed
• Key Mitigation sector Energy
• The Green Paper discusses nuclear as a definite
  choice
• Nuclear energy is a dangerous waste of time and
  undermines climate protection and diverts money
  away from RE
• Reducing coal large scale renewable energy
  energy efficiency are the key elements in
  creating emissions reductions
• RE could be a major creator of jobs and economic
  development (78 000 direct new jobs by 2030)
• CSP as baseload power vs coal

www.greenpeaceafrica.org
4
Policy approaches and actions

• Key Mitigation sector Energy
• Effective and binding targets must be set for
  demand side-management, energy efficiency and RE
  implementation
• Policy makes CCS a key component of emissions
  reductions should be completely removed, is
  experimental, unproven and very expensive
• Review and scale up RE must have timelines and
  numbers
• New and clean coal technologies?
• Key Mitigation sector Industry
• Reassess coal-to-liquids industry
• Carbon tax important component of emissions
  reductions
• Continuation of business as usual (mining)
  unacceptable
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Review
• Must be strengthened include independent
  sectoral benchmarking/targets

www.greenpeaceafrica.org
5
Key Recommendations

• Agricultural research, development, trade and
  financial resources directed towards ecological
  farming practices
• Alignment between the National Climate Change
  Response Policy, the IRP and the IEP is
  non-negotiable
• Green Paper is too vague in terms of timelines
  and targets these figures must be included
• A low carbon development plan with clear
  timelines and targets should be developed by the
  department
• CCS should be excluded from the document
• The nuclear option should be excluded from the
  document
• Renewable energy as a key future cornerstone of
  industry job creation, economic development
• Leadership is required to tackle climate change
  to protect the planet, this country, and our
  future. This policy must be much more
  detailed/ambitious.

www.greenpeaceafrica.org