BY GARETH MORGAN
President Zuma’s address to the United Nations General Assembly last week included some strong words on climate change, but as with the cabinet statement released two weeks earlier, it did not go far enough. The President reiterated the now well known position that the impacts of climate change will be devastating for Africa, and that it “will severely undermine development and poverty eradication efforts”.
He also made it clear that developed countries bear the greatest responsibility for climate change and its impact.
In political speak the President was on message. He did not deviate from the script that the former Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, had written during his tenure as South Africa’s climate change czar. But considering that the Copenhagen climate change negotiations are now less than 70 days away and that the likelihood of an agreement that will do justice to what the science requires is fading by the day, the President’s comments were not nearly strong enough.
We know that South Africa will not accept binding emission reduction targets. That has always been the case, and is a position shared by the other major emerging economies. But where is the talk from President Zuma on what South Africa is prepared to do? He said to the UN that “our goal should be to significantly reduce emissions across the globe”. Presumably in this case he meant the collective goal of all countries. His comments would have been so much stronger if he had said that South Africa was prepared to take mitigation action.
Nationally appropriate mitigation action by developing countries was a principle that South Africa supported in the Bali Action Plan, an outcome of the 13th Conference of the Parties in 2007.
The Long Term Mitigation Scenarios for South Africa already outline the extent to which our country can grow its emissions before levelling off and then finally making absolute reductions. Working out how to achieve this trajectory still needs much work, a matter which the government is admittedly showing little urgency on. Nevertheless, South Africa will in time take mitigation action that is appropriate for our economy, so the President should have made this clear to the UN and, more importantly, to the developed countries that are dragging their feet on their own commitments.
Having not explicitly said that South Africa will play its role in stabilising the world’s climate (admittedly in time), the focus of President Zuma’s comments appeared to be on obtaining transfer payments for the developing world from the developed world. He said that Copenhagen needed to deliver an agreement on new, additional, sustainable and predictable financing for adaptation. This is important, particularly for the least developed countries of the world, but it makes South Africa appear blameless for climate change. While our overall contribution to global historical emissions is small, let it be not forgotten that South Africa’s emissions per capita are only slightly lower than the average for industrialized countries, but are well above the developing country average. The trajectory is upwards and our reliance on coal is growing not dwindling.
No doubt the irony would not have been lost on the G8 countries listening to the contribution by President Zuma.
President Zuma lost an opportunity to be seen as a global leader on this issue. He should have been one the hand harder on what the developed countries needed to do the reduce their emissions, while on the other hand making it clear that South Africa would actively play its role.
He should have reminded the developed world that the science makes it clear that they need to cut their emissions by 25% to 40% by 2020, and by 80% by 2050. He should have reiterated the need to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees celcius. Beyond that temperature rise various climate tipping points come into play, and the likelihood of climatic disaster grows exponentially.
Two days after President Zuma addressed the UN General Assembly the Climate Change Scientific Compendium for 2009 was released. This review of over 400 scientific articles on climate change concluded that the rise in global temperatures could be even higher than was previously expected. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the UN, said that the report was a call to action. “The time for hesitation is over,” he said.
Ban Ki-Moon would have spent several days before listening to Heads of State talking about climate change, among other things, in the General Assembly. His comments could be aptly applied to President Zuma’s speech, for Zuma truly did hesitate.
Gareth Morgan is the shadow Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs.
Tags: climate change, copenhagen, zuma