Creecy still seems keen not to derail coal gravy train

Environment, forestry & fisheries minister Barbara Creecy’s recent release for comment of the update to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) required under the UN’s Paris Agreement makes me wonder just how long the government thinks it can pull the wool over investors’ eyes.

For those unfamiliar with the climate space, the NDCs are SA’s primary commitment to achieving less than 1.5°C global temperature increase, in line with the Paris Agreement. This process is being done by all parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change before the 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow later in 2021.

The primary aim of the NDCs is a set of proposals to improve greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions by 2030 above our previous commitment, made in 2015. On the surface, the document does not disappoint. The previous NDC document listed an emissions peak range of 398614 MtCO2e per year by 2030, but the new target range was adjusted downwards to 398440 MtCO2e per year by 2030.

Creecy even suggested that certain stakeholders may find the document “overly ambitious”, all while avoiding the “aspirational” commitment to national net-zero emissions by any set date, something even China has done. As previously lamented in this column, the scapegoat for this lack of “aspiration”, according to Creecy, is that citizens whose livelihood will be affected by the transition from coal to renewables must “not be left behind”. Yet again it appears that the “just transition” is trotted out as the reason not to derail the coal gravy train, even when modelling from the Council for Industrial & Scientific Research, “Energy Modelling for SA, Latest Approaches & Results in a Rapidly Changing Energy Environment”, shows that the least-cost Integrated Resources Plan means no new coal and no new nuclear until 2050, with almost 100MtCO2e a year less emissions, 64% less water used and 10%-20% more jobs.

It is especially interesting to hear the claim from chief director for international climate change negotiations Maesela Kekana that the ranges published in the draft update NDCs are consistent with SA’s “fair share” towards the Paris Agreement, as calculated using the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) and Climate Equity Reference Calculator. Even a cursory investigation of the CAT shows emission trajectory projections of the existing policy mix setting us on course for a range of 471-493 MtCO2e per year, not counting the effect of Covid-19.

When Covid-19’s effects are included, the CAT estimates that SA’s emissions may further decrease towards 2030 by about 8%-10% below current policy projections, meaning we could do nothing new and still reach a maximum ceiling of 453 MtCO2e a year. Talk about setting a low bar for action.

Contrary to what Kekana may believe, the CAT has considered this figure of 453 MtCO2e a year to be “highly insufficient” and has indicated that SA’s climate commitment in 2030 is “not consistent with holding warming to below 2°C, let alone limiting it to 1.5°C as required under the Paris Agreement, and is instead consistent with warming of 3°C4°C if all countries were to follow SA’s approach”.

Yet despite the clear evidence that the government is avoiding cheaper, cleaner, better employment-generating options, it intends to leverage the updated NDCs to access “significantly higher levels of climate finance” from multilateral and bilateral sources. With multilateral financiers including the World

Bank, announcing their intention to align their financing with the Paris Agreement, Creecy needs to get real about her ambitions to increase international climate finance to $4.5bn a year by 2025 and $8bn a year by 2030, and expect that funders will do just a little more due diligence than it took to write this article.

● Maguire holds a master’s degree in global change studies from Wits and has been developing green economy solutions for the private sector, NGOs and the government for more than a decade.