Cape Town - South Africa and Britain are leaders on their respective continents of global efforts to minimise the impacts of global climate change, says British cabinet minister Edward Davey.
And there is particular scope for co-operation between them in carbon capture and storage projects that are set to play an increasingly important role in the move to low-carbon economies, he says.
Carbon capture and storage projects involve capturing waste carbon dioxide emissions from large sources such as coal-burning power plants, and depositing them in storage sites – such as an underground geological formations or disused mines – so they cannot get into the atmosphere.
Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change, was in the British delegation to this week’s 10th session of the bilateral forum with South Africa that was held in Cape Town.
Although the particular theme of this session was “job creation focusing on youth development”, Davey said he had discussed climate change issues with Water and Environmental Affairs minister Edna Molewa.
“What I notice in my area of climate change is that South Africa and the United Kingdom are leaders on their continents, and therefore our working together is even more important. We share a very ambitious approach (to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change), so I think it’s important we deepen the work we do.”
There had been particular discussion on carbon capture and storage, which was an area in which Britain was doing “a huge amount”, he said.
“There is no reason why coal shouldn’t have a future if all the carbon can be safely captured and stored. So we have a very ambitious, billion pound (R15.7bn) programme to fund our two preferred bidders with a project in Scotland and a project in Yorkshire.
“We hope those two projects will be up and running in about two years, after a front-end engineering design stage, and we’re very, very confident that those will work.”
Britain was funding a project to look at the potential for carbon capture and storage in South Africa, Davey said.
“I think this is really both a key area of co-operation and a key way forward for coal and gas.”
l South Africa and Britain have signed an agreement to encourage a much wider interaction between their respective scientific research communities.
Each will contribute R1.5-million for organising seminars and conferences for groups of early to mid-career scientists to boost collaboration and knowledge transfer, among other goals.
The agreement, the Scientific Seminar Scheme, will run from next month until March 2015. It was signed in Cape Town this week by Science and Technology minister Derek Hanekom and his British counterpart, David Willetts, on behalf of his country’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
Willetts was also in Cape Town for the bilateral forum. - Cape Argus