INLSA

Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa at the Climate Justice Concert Rally, Kings Park Stadium.Photo: Jacques Naude

Edna Molewa

Africa has contributed least to the build-up of greenhouse gases globally, but will be in the frontline of the adverse effects of climate change.

We are highly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as rain-fed agriculture. Combined with the severe development challenges the continent already faces, Africans are particularly vulnerable.

The average African generates about 13 times less greenhouse gases than North Americans. In 2007, Africa accounted for less than 4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, without an overriding mitigation and adaptation agenda, we may see these figures rise in years to come, as development and population rates grow.

The challenge for Africa is to decouple economic and social development from using fossil fuels and deforestation to an unprecedented extent. Africa needs to embark on a path of sustainable development with new, clean, appropriate technologies and to build climate-resilient communities, to avoid the mistakes of the developed world.

Considering that 550 million people in Africa do not have access to electricity, there is enormous scope for Africa to become a world leader in the deployment of renewable energy. Hydropower, for instance, is an under-utilised energy source, with less than 10 percent of the potential in Africa being used. A national, regional and international effort towards unlocking this potential could take Africans from being among the most vulnerable to becoming climate-resilient.

South Africa’s National Climate Change Response (NCCR) White Paper, published in October, draws on research that suggests an overall decrease in water availability that will threaten humans and agriculture in years to come. In other parts of Africa with large pastoral communities, such as Kenya, reduced food production and increasingly limited forage and water for livestock is already evident.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change foresees yields from rain-fed agriculture being cut by half by 2020. This will spell famine for many. Added to this is limited access to drinking water and an increased risk of diseases such as cholera and malaria spreading in Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya with rises in temperature. Many countries will shift from water surpluses to water scarcity before 2025.

Responding to climate change requires global co-operation and accountability. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio established the Polluter Pays Principle. In the context of climate change, this implies a responsibility on the behalf of developed nations not only to mitigate their emissions, but to take a degree of responsibility for the consequences of their emissions for the developing world.

In the same spirit, the SA government recognises its role as the major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Africa. We are responsible for 38 percent of the total emissions.

The National Climate Change Response CCR White Paper stresses our commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 34 percent below a business-as-usual trajectory in 2020 and by 40 percent in 2025 before stabilising our emissions in absolute terms, and ultimately reducing them.

Another area of concern is deforestation. The Food and Agriculture organisation places six out of the 10 largest forest losses in the world in sub-Saharan Africa. This is largely due to forest areas being converted for relatively low-income usage.

A programme of incentives to avoid deforestation in Africa could make great inroads into mitigating CO2 emissions, at the same time supporting greener alternatives.

The African Union has partnered with South Africa to ensure that the African Pavilion at COP17 effectively presents the issues of climate change that Africa is grappling with, and the opportunities for green development that responses to climate change hold for the continent.

Because of Africa’s vulnerability to climate change, failure to contain average global temperature increases to within 2°C would be an unacceptable outcome for the global mitigation effort.

The impacts of climate change know no border, and it has been a driving force for co-operation between African governments.

Now, in the face of dangerous environmental shifts, the concept of Ubuntu – acting as a member of the human family – is particularly important.

Understanding and addressing the plight of Africa will be the key that unlocks a new way forward for the rest of the world.

l Molewa is Minister of Environmental Affairs. This is an edited version of her speech at the COP17 talks in Durban yesterday.