Our critical role in global climate battle
South Africa is already experiencing the effects of climate change, and inconsistencies in law, policy and planning must be rectified
Every year in early October, villagers would begin preparing their fields in anticipation of the annual rains, reminisces subsistence farmer Jantjie Ramokone. After the rains, they would use oxen to plough their patches of land. There was one hectare per household on the outskirts of the village as allocated by the traditional authority.
The villagers cultivated sorghum, millet, mealies, melons, beans, morogo, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and other crops. They also tended cattle and goats to provide milk. During the rainy season, the veld around the village teemed with wild fruit that supplemented their diets.
“That was our way of life. We were farming so that we could eat. We never bought food. We ate what we produced,” he said.
“It was an exciting time. We would be walking to the fields, singing, calling each other to go work the land because the rain was coming,” reminisced 68-yearold Ramokone with a smile.
This was a way of life in most rural parts of the country where communities produced their own food and relied less on buying from local retailers. But changing weather patterns resulting from climate change are slowly bringing an end to this traditional way of life and endangering food security.
Small-scale farmers with fewer resources have been hit hard by unusual weather patterns. Experts predict the trend will continue if nothing is done to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Peter Johnston, Climate Scientist and Researcher at the University of Cape Town, noted in an article published by UCT: “The threat of changing rainfall seasons leading to shifting rainfall dates plays havoc with planting dates and crop management. Wide-ranging crop yield reductions may not affect a country with access to grain imports, but many countries with a large subsistence agricultural base face severe food shortages when crops fail.”
In March this year, cabinet approved the updated draft of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the cornerstone of the country’s climate change response.
The NDC is South Africa’s commitment to the global climate change effort in terms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, of which South Africa is a signatory.
Under the Paris Agreement — a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 parties at the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015 — all parties are required to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCS every five years. South Africa’s first NDC with the UNFCCC was published in October 2015.
South Africa has described the Paris Agreement as “a political landmark” and “a remarkable turning point for climate action, sending a clear signal that a low carbon and climate-resilient world is inevitable”.
The Paris Agreement’s three fundamental aims are to keep the global average temperature increase “to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C”. This will “foster
climate resilience and low greenhouse-gas emissions development, without threatening food production and establishing means of finance to achieve these goals”.
South Africa’s obligations under the Paris Agreement include the mobilisation of financial resources and capacity building to implement the NDCS.
The country is also obliged to ensure that there is institutional memory for the reporting cycles (every five years) and to ensure that there are adequate institutional arrangements for planning, preparing and submitting NDCS every five years.
Barbara Creecy, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, has called for a resolution on the setting of common timeframes for NDCS. Creecy said South Africa has a five-year timeframe, which is in line with Africa’s position of not locking in low emissions over a long period.
“The Glasgow outcome should be a package deal that advances the negotiations and all three aspects of the Paris Agreement, namely mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation of climate action. South Africa stands ready to play a constructive role in the success of COP26,” Creecy said.
The department has argued that it already has a well-developed base for mitigating climate change and building climate resilience in its Near-term Priority Flagship Programmes, which are strategic, large-scale measures of national significance.
“They are the game-changers in South Africa’s
climate change response landscape and represent the low-hanging fruit that can potentially catalyse South Africa’s long-term climate action.”
According to the department, many components of these programmes have been implemented with notable success and signify remarkably bold steps towards a low carbon and climate-resilient economy and society.
“The NCCRP gives effect to the Flagship Programmes and recognises them as an integral part of South Africa’s climate change response policy.”
Creecy noted the impact of climate change and the country’s responsibility towards fighting its implications.
“South Africa is among the many vulnerable developing countries that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. This is evident from the increased frequency of extreme weather conditions such as floods, droughts and heatwaves that threaten lives, food security and infrastructure,” Creecy said.
“It is crucial for South Africa and Africa as a whole, to see adaptation treated in a balanced manner at COP26 and to be on the agenda in Glasgow and implemented thereafter. We hope to use the informal side meetings that take place at COP26 to generate further interest in supporting the country’s just transition to a low carbon economy and climateresilient society,” she said.
South Africa is a signatory of the UNFCC and the Kyoto Protocol, which legally binds developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions
by 5.2% below the 1990 levels by 2012. South Africa signed the 1997 initiative in 2002, and it entered into force in 2005.
Creecy said South Africa’s adaptation communication in line with the Paris Agreement outlines five goals, articulates the efforts that are to be implemented, and details the associated costs for the period 2021 to 2030.
“The adaptation communication will enable support for key sectors that are affected by the impact of climate change, including human settlements, agriculture, water and energy. It will also affirm the leadership role which South Africa has played in the international climate regime on adaptation,” she said.
Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference through its Parliamentary Liaison Office, noted that South Africa is dealing with a new kind of agreement. “Inconsistencies in law, policy and planning must be rectified; and a balance must be struck between the imperatives of mitigating climate change on the one hand, and adapting to it on the other.”
Creecy vowed that South Africa “goes to Glasgow (COP26) with a clear mandate to negotiate for the full implementation of the UNFCC 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 our people and the environment”.
With such determination and zeal, perhaps another generation of subsistence farmers who can depend on the weather patterns will emerge.