Date: 05/10/2005
Source: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Title: M van Schalkwyk: UN Parliamentarian Forum on Energy Legislation and Sustainable Development
Speech by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, addressing the opening session of UN Parliamentarian Forum on Energy Legislation and Sustainable Development, Parliament
THE LINK BETWEEN ENERGY & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Three years ago South Africa welcomed the world to the largest United Nations (UN) event in history, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.
Where the 1992 Rio Earth Summit described the sustainable development equation, Johannesburg placed people and their needs centre-stage in that equation, adding new relevance and urgency to the need for sustainable development.
The WSSD captured the essence of a global attitude shift - from one which saw the interests of people in opposition to the interests of the environment, to one that moved the Heads of State of more than 180 nations to speak with one voice - identifying poverty and global inequality as the greatest obstacles to sustainable development.
Any discussion of the interlinking challenges facing our global community of nations will correctly identify energy, sustainable development, and the environment as key concerns - particularly in their most recognisable point of convergence: global climate change.
The Timing and Context of This Forum
In many respects this forum has been convened at an opportune moment, coming as it does on the heels of the G8 Heads of State and Government meeting in Gleneagles in July. This forum provides parliamentarians with a key opportunity to engage with the issues in advance of the negotiations and multi-lateral meetings that will shortly be taking place.
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) 14 and CSD 15 sessions (in 2006 and 2007 respectively) will add to the international prominence of these issues with a focus on energy, air pollution, climate change and industrial development. The 11th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC) will be held this November in Montreal, and will be the first formal meeting of the Parties after the coming into force of the Protocol. This will also include the opening of talks about the post-2012 commitment period for developed countries bound by Kyoto.
Perhaps most importantly however, our world stands braced for a moment within a brief window of opportunity, provided by projected global energy needs. Over the next 25 years world-wide energy demands are expected to grow by 60%, requiring a $16 trillion capital investment in the energy sector. Two thirds of the new demand is predicted to come from developing countries like India and China. As we struggle to meet this demand and to try to provide affordable energy to some of the 1,6 billion people (including 60% of the people in sub-Saharan Africa) that do not yet have access to modern energy services, it is predicted that fossil fuels will account for 85% of this increased demand - with an exponential increase in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
We are now presented with a defining moment of choice to either travel the same carbon-intensive development path or to develop the world's new energy infrastructure in a sustainable manner, making technological interventions that will mitigate climate change and lay the foundations for a lower carbon future.
Sustainable Responses Needed to Climate Change
It would be irresponsible to minimise the scale of the threat posed by climate change to Africa and vulnerable nations across the globe. As Mount Kilimanjaro loses the last remnants of its once-great glaciers, and the Arctic ice-pack continues to thin, it is clear that human-induced climate change is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the international community.
Scientific modelling suggests that over the next fifty years in South Africa the distribution of bioclimatic zones covered by our current biomes may reduce by more than 35% - with hotter and drier conditions reducing maize production in marginal production areas by as much as 20%, mostly in the drier Western regions. While these are preliminary results, they indicate that we cannot afford not to act because climate change will change the way we live, with massive social and economic 'knock-on' effects for our communities. Floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events; increased water-borne diseases; more frequent fires; and even the extinction of plant and animal species are all likely results of this change.
It is therefore of critical importance for us to build a more effective and inclusive global climate change response regime, while we reduce the uncertainties of the projected changes through focussed research. Nations like the United States of America (USA), whose 4% of the global population accounts for 25% of global emissions, must be convinced to add their support to the international efforts.
Where international climate change response agendas have focused much attention on mitigation measures, our current and future actions must more carefully balance mitigation and adaptation. This is necessary to address the extreme vulnerability of developing countries, especially in Africa. To ensure that developing nations become serious partners in the global climate change response regime much more funding will need to be allocated to adaptation measures.
It is to address these concerns that South Africa will host our first National Conference on Climate Change from 17 to 20 October in Gauteng. The event will comprise two related parallel sessions: a Science Conference and the National Consultative Conference, drawing together experts and policy-makers to raise awareness about the challenges, test and agree on response strategies, and to prioritise mitigation and adaptation in all of our endeavours. We will also be participating in the Nairobi conference in late October to help prepare a strong African message to be carried into the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal in December.
South African Development & Energy Strategies
South African development imperatives, examined in the context of energy demands, provide good insight into the sustainable development challenges. To address the social and economic imbalances of our history, we require national job creating economic growth of 3-6% annually. About 75% of our primary energy is sourced from coal, which produces about 92% of our electricity supply. Our underlying energy needs will, for the foreseeable future, remain heavily dependent on coal, particularly as many of our current power stations have residual life spans of 20 years or more and cannot economically or realistically be replaced before then. Yet major opportunities to transform and adapt to a more sustainable energy regime exist, because South Africa needs to build 1000 MW of new capacity each year, for at least the next 20 years. Investment decisions will clearly shape our energy sector for decades to come. The transition to a lower-carbon energy system needs therefore to begin now.
Given the current structure of the global economy however, and South Africa's dependence on fossil fuels, the most feasible and practical means of addressing sustainability and mitigating against negative effects like climate change, are through technological interventions and development policies. Since our energy sector is the single largest source of GHG emissions in South Africa, our interventions are aimed at saving energy, diversifying energy sources, and research and development into new technologies.
By way of examples, we have set an energy savings target of 12% in energy demand by the year 2015. Our renewable energy target is an additional 10 000 GWhr, by 2013, to be produced mainly from biomass, wind, solar and small-scale hydro sources. There is also potential to harness the large water resources in other Southern African countries to supply hydropower to our region. Major new energy projects, coupled with regional grid integration in Southern Africa, could kick-start regional electricity trading, involving at least the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana, Angola, Namibia and South Africa. In terms of cleaner energy achievements, we are proud of our status as world-leaders in research on, inter alia, in situ coal gasification.
These interventions are still only our first steps. With limited affordable technologies, and limited water and wind resources, most of the identified range of technologies for increasing the resilience, efficiency, and environmental performance of energy systems are unsuitable or simply unaffordable.
Nonetheless, we are committed to working on both the international and domestic levels to address mitigation and adaptation issues
Source: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Title: M van Schalkwyk: UN Parliamentarian Forum on Energy Legislation and Sustainable Development
Speech by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, addressing the opening session of UN Parliamentarian Forum on Energy Legislation and Sustainable Development, Parliament
THE LINK BETWEEN ENERGY & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Three years ago South Africa welcomed the world to the largest United Nations (UN) event in history, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.
Where the 1992 Rio Earth Summit described the sustainable development equation, Johannesburg placed people and their needs centre-stage in that equation, adding new relevance and urgency to the need for sustainable development.
The WSSD captured the essence of a global attitude shift - from one which saw the interests of people in opposition to the interests of the environment, to one that moved the Heads of State of more than 180 nations to speak with one voice - identifying poverty and global inequality as the greatest obstacles to sustainable development.
Any discussion of the interlinking challenges facing our global community of nations will correctly identify energy, sustainable development, and the environment as key concerns - particularly in their most recognisable point of convergence: global climate change.
The Timing and Context of This Forum
In many respects this forum has been convened at an opportune moment, coming as it does on the heels of the G8 Heads of State and Government meeting in Gleneagles in July. This forum provides parliamentarians with a key opportunity to engage with the issues in advance of the negotiations and multi-lateral meetings that will shortly be taking place.
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) 14 and CSD 15 sessions (in 2006 and 2007 respectively) will add to the international prominence of these issues with a focus on energy, air pollution, climate change and industrial development. The 11th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC) will be held this November in Montreal, and will be the first formal meeting of the Parties after the coming into force of the Protocol. This will also include the opening of talks about the post-2012 commitment period for developed countries bound by Kyoto.
Perhaps most importantly however, our world stands braced for a moment within a brief window of opportunity, provided by projected global energy needs. Over the next 25 years world-wide energy demands are expected to grow by 60%, requiring a $16 trillion capital investment in the energy sector. Two thirds of the new demand is predicted to come from developing countries like India and China. As we struggle to meet this demand and to try to provide affordable energy to some of the 1,6 billion people (including 60% of the people in sub-Saharan Africa) that do not yet have access to modern energy services, it is predicted that fossil fuels will account for 85% of this increased demand - with an exponential increase in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
We are now presented with a defining moment of choice to either travel the same carbon-intensive development path or to develop the world's new energy infrastructure in a sustainable manner, making technological interventions that will mitigate climate change and lay the foundations for a lower carbon future.
Sustainable Responses Needed to Climate Change
It would be irresponsible to minimise the scale of the threat posed by climate change to Africa and vulnerable nations across the globe. As Mount Kilimanjaro loses the last remnants of its once-great glaciers, and the Arctic ice-pack continues to thin, it is clear that human-induced climate change is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the international community.
Scientific modelling suggests that over the next fifty years in South Africa the distribution of bioclimatic zones covered by our current biomes may reduce by more than 35% - with hotter and drier conditions reducing maize production in marginal production areas by as much as 20%, mostly in the drier Western regions. While these are preliminary results, they indicate that we cannot afford not to act because climate change will change the way we live, with massive social and economic 'knock-on' effects for our communities. Floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events; increased water-borne diseases; more frequent fires; and even the extinction of plant and animal species are all likely results of this change.
It is therefore of critical importance for us to build a more effective and inclusive global climate change response regime, while we reduce the uncertainties of the projected changes through focussed research. Nations like the United States of America (USA), whose 4% of the global population accounts for 25% of global emissions, must be convinced to add their support to the international efforts.
Where international climate change response agendas have focused much attention on mitigation measures, our current and future actions must more carefully balance mitigation and adaptation. This is necessary to address the extreme vulnerability of developing countries, especially in Africa. To ensure that developing nations become serious partners in the global climate change response regime much more funding will need to be allocated to adaptation measures.
It is to address these concerns that South Africa will host our first National Conference on Climate Change from 17 to 20 October in Gauteng. The event will comprise two related parallel sessions: a Science Conference and the National Consultative Conference, drawing together experts and policy-makers to raise awareness about the challenges, test and agree on response strategies, and to prioritise mitigation and adaptation in all of our endeavours. We will also be participating in the Nairobi conference in late October to help prepare a strong African message to be carried into the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal in December.
South African Development & Energy Strategies
South African development imperatives, examined in the context of energy demands, provide good insight into the sustainable development challenges. To address the social and economic imbalances of our history, we require national job creating economic growth of 3-6% annually. About 75% of our primary energy is sourced from coal, which produces about 92% of our electricity supply. Our underlying energy needs will, for the foreseeable future, remain heavily dependent on coal, particularly as many of our current power stations have residual life spans of 20 years or more and cannot economically or realistically be replaced before then. Yet major opportunities to transform and adapt to a more sustainable energy regime exist, because South Africa needs to build 1000 MW of new capacity each year, for at least the next 20 years. Investment decisions will clearly shape our energy sector for decades to come. The transition to a lower-carbon energy system needs therefore to begin now.
Given the current structure of the global economy however, and South Africa's dependence on fossil fuels, the most feasible and practical means of addressing sustainability and mitigating against negative effects like climate change, are through technological interventions and development policies. Since our energy sector is the single largest source of GHG emissions in South Africa, our interventions are aimed at saving energy, diversifying energy sources, and research and development into new technologies.
By way of examples, we have set an energy savings target of 12% in energy demand by the year 2015. Our renewable energy target is an additional 10 000 GWhr, by 2013, to be produced mainly from biomass, wind, solar and small-scale hydro sources. There is also potential to harness the large water resources in other Southern African countries to supply hydropower to our region. Major new energy projects, coupled with regional grid integration in Southern Africa, could kick-start regional electricity trading, involving at least the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana, Angola, Namibia and South Africa. In terms of cleaner energy achievements, we are proud of our status as world-leaders in research on, inter alia, in situ coal gasification.
These interventions are still only our first steps. With limited affordable technologies, and limited water and wind resources, most of the identified range of technologies for increasing the resilience, efficiency, and environmental performance of energy systems are unsuitable or simply unaffordable.
Nonetheless, we are committed to working on both the international and domestic levels to address mitigation and adaptation issues
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