South Africa Must Walk The Talk At COP26, Says Analysts

MINISTER OF Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs Barbara Creecy says South Africa goes to Glasgow with a clear mandate to negotiate for the full implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, including the global goals on mitigation, adaptation and support for developing countries, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change on Africa’s people and the environment.

Creecy added that the COP26 climate talks scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland, this week need to prioritise the securing of finance, technology and capacity building support from developed to developing countries.

“Significant long-term financial resources, at concessional rates, will be needed to introduce new technologies and open up significant new job creation opportunities so that our country joins others who are benefiting from the green technological transition across the world,” Creecy said.

Investment in the green economy provided strategic advantages and new economic prospects, she said, quoting a recent Accenture report that estimates that green industries and technology could unlock economic activities to the value of $350-billion across Africa.

“It opens access to new financing opportunities, it offers the possibility of significant proven job creation, it has potential to localise production and services, which will build small and medium enterprises and, of course, it enhances our long-term competitiveness while mitigating our transition risks.”

Creecy’s address follows Cabinet’s recent approval of a revised Nationally Determined Contribution decarbonisation range for 2030 of 420- to 350-million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂-eq) for 2030, which represents a marked improvement on its 2015 pledge of 614 Mt CO₂-eq to 398 Mt CO₂-eq.

The recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says that in order to limit the impacts of climate change, the international community needs to collectively halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieve global net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, while strongly reducing other greenhouse gas emissions.

“Our country, as signatory to the Paris Agreement, re-emphasises its firm commitment to contributing our best effort toward the global cause of addressing climate change. Not only have we very significantly increased the ambition of our mitigation targets, but we have also brought forward the year in which emissions are due to decline from 2035 in the initial NDC, to 2025 in the updated NDC,” said Creecy.

“The country’s mitigation target range for 2030 has been updated placing the top of the range of our revised NDC in line with the Paris Agreement’s temperature limit of “well below 2 degrees”, and the bottom of the range with the 1.5-degree temperature limit.”

South Africa will be encouraging all parties to submit their updated NDCs as soon as possible.

“We will also be encouraging countries who have not yet done so, to voluntarily submit their Low Emissions Development Strategies (LEDs) under Article 4.19,” she said. 

“Our country submitted our LEDS strategy to the UNFCCC in November 2020, which outlines our mid -century aspiration to achieve a low emissions economy and climate resilient society.”

Last month, Cabinet approved an updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in terms of the Paris Climate Agreement.

This NDC includes the greenhouse gas emissions limits that South Africa has committed to adhere to – for 2025 and 2030.

Only the lower bound of South Africa’s Updated NDC target range (of 350 to 420 Mt CO2eq) is broadly consistent with the 1.5°C pathway the world needs to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Alexis Scholtz-Wheeler, spokesperson for Life After Coal, said to meet that lower bound target within the timeframes set, urgent action must start now.

The most pressing actions are:

• Cancelling all new coal projects. This includes the 1500MW of coal still present in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity (IRP) (projected to cost SA 23 billion compared to a least-cost optimised electricity system, and 25 000 job losses economy-wide by 2030), and extra-IRP plans like the proposed 1320MW to 3300MW coal power plant planned for the Musina Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ).
• Avoiding massive new gas infrastructure projects that modelling has shown we do not need in the future. Gas is still a fossil fuel, with high greenhouse gas emissions all along the gas value chain, as well as high negative climate impacts that would move us further away from meeting national obligations. In its Net Zero by 2050 report released in July 2021, the International Energy Agency stated that, in order to reach net-zero by 2050, no new oil or gas fields can be developed as of the date of the report. There is currently 25 000MW worth of new gas-fired power projects for which license or authorisation applications have been made.
• Accelerating the retirement of our coal fleet at a rate faster than that prescribed by the timetable in the IRP 2019. The Life After Coal campaign calls for zero fossil fuels in electricity generation by 2040 at the latest, and a zero fossil fuel economy by 2050. Coal pollution is killing our people and destroying their health. This is a gross Constitutional and human rights violation that cannot continue.
• Accelerating a broad and inclusive just transition from coal and other fossil fuels. In August, the Life After Coal campaign launched a Just Transition Open Agenda which sets out the key tenets of such a just transition. We want a transition that not only secures a coal phase-out, but does so in a way that achieves a fair outcome for workers and communities, including in particular women and youth; that gives effect to Constitutional rights, including the right to equality; and that makes our country and our communities more climate resilient. A credible, supported Just Transition Plan also increases our prospects of getting the finance we need.
• Dramatically scaling up and accelerating our renewable energy build: We are currently far behind the timetables for the already constrained renewable energy plans put forward in the outdated 2019 IRP. Modelling shows that we need to build at least 4 GW of renewable (wind and solar) capacity per year for the rest of the decade in order to meet our committed emission reduction targets. There are many positive spin-offs for economic development and job creation from such a big renewable build.

Wheeler called on the South African government to play a strong and leading role at COP26, stand in solidarity with developing countries, particularly those on the African continent.

He urged government to advance the following objectives at COP26:

• Holding all countries – in particular major emitting countries like the United States, EU member countries, Australia, India and China – to account under their commitments to avoid exceeding 5 degrees. What is currently on the table in terms of global NDCs is wholly insufficient to keep us to 1.5 degrees, and many countries continue to grant new rights for coal, oil, and gas projects. For the Paris Agreement and COP26 to have any legitimacy, such flagrant disregard of the survival of millions of people must end.
• Supporting a dramatic scale-up of climate finance commitments, and delivery against those commitments by developed countries, for low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries. Many LMIC countries do not have the fiscal space to deal with their existing debt burden, in addition to the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change impacts.
• Prioritising and putting into operation a Global Goal on Adaptation. The intensification of the climate crisis has brought issues of adaptation and loss and damage to the front and centre, and these issues must be dealt with at the COP. We have lost the luxury of dealing with mitigation first, and adaptation after.
• Securing long-term finance for adaptation in developing countries. Adaptation finance currently accounts for just 25% of total climate finance from developed to developing countries. The reality is that adaptation is already costing developing countries $70 billion per annum, and this is set to quadruple over the next 30 years.
• Addressing the crucial issue of loss and damage – the costs that LMIC countries already have to bear as a result of past and existing impacts of global climate change. Much of these impacts are the less visible impacts of climate change, such as the slow onset through sea level rise and prolonged drought. At COP26, we need to see developed countries providing the scale of funding needed for LMIC countries to address these costs.

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