South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) on Thursday expressed a "firm intent" to complete the country's national climate change policy white paper by the end of 2010.

Environmental Affairs DDG Joanne Yawitch explained to Engineering News Online that the department hoped to have a ‘green paper' completed by mid-year, which would be followed by a public consultation process before the finalisation of the policy.

"There is a whole process that we, from our department, will be leading, where we are hoping that we can bring in and collect the views of as many people as possible, and arrive at something, which, to the largest extent possible, reflects a broad South African perspective based on the science," she told participants gathered at a ‘Copenhagen Unpacked' briefing hosted by Investec.

It was accepted that climate change had the potential to affect just about every sector in South Africa, including: energy and industry, trade, agriculture, water, transportation, healthcare, finance, and infrastructural development.

"Stakeholder engagement is key," stressed Sasol safety health and environment centre manager Fred Goede, who emphasised that from about 60% to 70% of the country's emissions that would need to be cut, would need to be done so in the private sector.

"To move forward, we need to balance priorities, identify blockages, and decide how we can work together to unblock them," added Eskom climate change and sustainability manager Mandy Rambharos, who also reiterated the need for integrated planning and "proper stakeholder engagement" when drawing up the national climate change policy.

Investec Asset Management portfolio manager Malcolm Gray asserted that the accessibility of the climate change debate remained a problem, and said that there was a "real need for clear leadership and guidance, which is easily available and accessible".

He added that part of the policy framework, within the green paper, should look at how "natural pools of capital" could be mobilised.

Emission reduction targets that were set by government, as well as scenarios that were outlined should be made clearly available, noted independent climate change consultant Dave Collins.

Yawitch said that the department understood that it needed to put out a clear document, and added that stakeholder engagement would be a central element of the policy.

An important part of this engagement would be to take a decision as to whether the reporting of emissions and emission reductions by companies would be regulated.

Yawitch stated that there was "quite a big debate" and many different views as to what extent industry felt that emissions reporting should be a voluntary process, and the extent to which people felt that government should be regulating it.

"I understand the need for certainty, but that certainty has got to come out of an interaction where we all feel that we can put our different perspectives forward and then be able to make a judgement call on what is going to be the best thing to do. It is a discussion we need to have and resolve during the course of this year," she said.

The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) was drawing up greenhouse gas reporting regulations and that process would move ahead. "But before we actually promulgate anything, we would want to be able to have that clarity at a policy level about what is the appropriate approach," Yawitch said.

She explained that the department was also in the process of compiling a climate change response database containing details of initiatives that are being taken in South Africa to combat climate change. "That in itself needs to be built into something that is more accessible, more widely used and a more useful tool, both to ourselves and to everybody else," Yawitch explained.

SOUTH AFRICAN TARGETS

Prior to the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, South Africa outlined that it would undertake greenhouse gas emissions mitigation actions that would result in a deviation below the current emissions baseline of around 34% by 2020 and by around 42% by 2025.

Despite being contingent on a legally supportive framework and stable financial flows from developed nations, this was viewed as an ambitious target, particularly for a developing country.

Yawitch explained that these targets were derived largely from the long-term mitigation scenario document, as well as the latest version of the Department of Energy's integrated resources plan with its various renewable energy and energy-efficiency commitments, and the clean technology investment fund portfolio commitments.

It was presumed that these would be the targets that South Africa would submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a part of the Copenhagen Accord, which requires that countries accepting the Accord submit their outlined targets by January 31.