SA sticks to climate goals

File photo: This was first announced by President Zuma at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks. Picture: Phill Magakoe

File photo: This was first announced by President Zuma at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks. Picture: Phill Magakoe

Published Aug 11, 2015

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Pretoria - The government is sticking to its climate goals first announced by President Jacob Zuma in Copenhagen nearly six years ago of slashing the country’s polluting greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2020 and by 42 percent by 2025.

This is contained in a discussion document on South Africa’s post-2020 climate action plan, released this week by the Department of Environmental Affairs.

It reveals how it believes South Africa’s peak, plateau and decline trajectory range “contributes at a national level to bending the curve of growing emissions in the context of addressing poverty”.

This was first announced by President Zuma at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, where he revealed how the country’s emissions would peak between 2020 and 2025, plateau for a decade and then decline in absolute terms after that.

This is consistent with a “just transition to a low-carbon future”, says the department in the document on its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), which features its plans for how it will mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has asked countries to present their emissions reduction proposals, which will be part of a new international climate agreement to be thrashed out in Paris in December.

The Environmental Affairs Department started public consultations on its INDC this week.

South Africa, like other developing countries, is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which are already having an impact with “marked temperature increases, rainfall variations, and rising sea levels”, it states.

“South Africa is firmly committed to working with others to ensure that temperature increases are kept well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels… noting that global average temperatures increases of 2°C translates up to 4°C for SA by the end of the century.

“This goal is an essential starting point for our INDC, and we believe should inform all countries’ contributions… Near zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases are needed in the second half of the century to avoid even greater impact.”

The department says “good progress” has been made in implementing climate compatible sectoral plans, for example its integrated energy and electricity planning, industrial policy action plans and the new growth path.

South Africa is implementing a mitigation system but “to move from analysis of mitigation potential to implementation, human and institutional capacity need to be further enhanced”.

The country is facing acute energy challenges yet is still taking on incremental investments for climate change.

“Our previous pledge took into account the building of two new coal-fired power stations that are nearing completion.

“Despite these challenges, SA has attracted investment in 5 243MW of renewable energy and is considering adding a further 6 300MW.

“Programmes to increase efficiency and reduce emissions intensity are in place.”

The document details how South Africa envisages five-year periods of implementation at the national level for policy instruments under development, including a carbon tax, desired emission reduction outcomes for sectors and company-level carbon budgets.

Implementation periods are expected to run from next year to 2020.

Pretoria News

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