Committed to action on climate change
SA’s mitigation targets get more ambitious
The recent release of the third of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment reports emphasises the global urgency of acting on mitigation.
In welcoming the report, the minister of forestry, fisheries & the environment, Barbara Creecy, said: “SA has taken a developmental approach to climate action, and this report provides valuable scientific information to guide our just transition.”
The assessment report forms part of the series of reports to be adopted under the IPCC sixth assessment cycle. The IPCC will release a final synthesis report of the key findings in September this year.
The IPCC Working Group III (WGIII) report on mitigation found that the world has spent four-fifths of the carbon budget already, meaning that a small carbon budget remains. Given that poor countries and communities will suffer most from climate impacts at higher global warming levels, all countries and stakeholders need to take action. It also highlights the systemic nature of mitigation.
“We have recognised that the consequences of climate change will be catastrophic for the world, and for SA in particular. We have also realised that we cannot continue on the current economic path, which is unsustainable and ecologically damaging,” said Creecy.
This is evident from SA’s updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) deposited with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2021. The updated NDC not only contains SA’s first adaptation communication, but also updated mitigation targets for 2025 and 2030.
The country’s mitigation target range for 2025 was updated from its original value of 398million tonnes to 614-million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to a range between 398-million tonnes and 510million tonnes for 2025. And, most significantly, its 2030 mitigation target range was updated from 398-million tonnes to 614-million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to a range between 350-million tonnes and 420-million tonnes. The country’s revised NDC is consistent with the Paris Agreement ’ s temperature limit of “well below 2º”, and the bottom of the range is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5º temperature limit.
“Not only has SA very significantly increased the ambition of its 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.
Meeting these mitigation targets will depend on considerable levels of multilateral support, as specified in the Paris Agreement, in the form of the provision of finance, technology transfer and capacity-building.
However, support to adequately fund a just transition remains vital to ensure that no-one is left behind, and that the country’s urgent development goals are met at the same time.
The WGIII report provides new framing of shifting development pathways towards sustainability (SDPS), which goes together with the climate resilient development pathways (CRDP) in the WGII report released earlier this year.
The IPCC reports show climate action is part of a developmental agenda and that mitigation and adaptation must be addressed together with means of implementation.
“In the context of this report, issues of climate justice have never been more compelling. As we transition our energy generation and at least seven sectors of our economy, we are encouraged to see the IPCC report highlights a growing number of just transition commissions, laws, institutions and processes,” said Creecy.
Work is well under way in SA to implement the Just Energy Transition Partnership to support the accelerated phasedown of coal-fired power and to support social justice. Eskom has already commissioned significant research on social labour plans for the transition of coal-fired power stations facing decommissioning later this decade. Labour unions have published a blueprint for workers in a just transition, which has been welcomed.
Climate action remains a national and international priority and SA remains firmly committed to contributing its best effort towards the global cause of addressing climate change.
‘‘ Issues of climate justice have never been more compelling Sowetan Page 3, Friday May 13 2022