Displaying items by tag: Climate Change

The draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity generation was released for public comment by the South African Department of Energy (DOE) in October 2010. While the document is therefore still in draft form, and will presumably be refined in the final stage of public engagement, it is worthwhile to reflect on the state of this draft IRP, a document that marks a turning point in the energy planning process in South Africa.

The process of supporting transparent and accountable electricity planning in South Africa, open to public debate, and reflected upon and refined based on a process of democratic engagement, has hitherto been absent in contemporary South Africa. Indeed, until very recently, dialogue on the makeup and priorities of electricity planning were restricted to a handful of closely knit institutions and individuals, and outside of the breadth of public examination. The IRP 2010, as the latest IRP document is referred to, represents the first in what will hopefully be a long history of transparent electricity planning efforts in the country.

Equally important, the document constitutes the first tangible attempt to commence the process of integrating and aligning South Africa’s climate change mitigation objectives on the one hand, through a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with electricity usage, and the country’s traditional and critically important energy planning functions and priorities related to universal access, economic development, industrial competitiveness and security of supply.

There is an increased recognition that actions to address climate change and the environment are intimately linked to economic growth and sustainable development goals and needs. Actions to promote increased resilience to climate change impacts and a lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emission economy in Southern African Development Community (SADC) fall across a variety of sectors, such as energy, agriculture, health, water resources and infrastructure. The achievement of a number of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets, most notably in poverty reduction, will be compromised by five climates change induced human development tipping points, including reduction on agricultural productivity, heighten water insecurity, exposure to extreme events, collapse of ecosystems, and increased health risks.

To obtain effective answers to how to address climate change and the environment from trade as well as developmental and economc perspective in SADC, it is crucial to engage a variety of government stakeholders in SADC such as ministries of finance, planning, energy, health, etc as well as other relevant stakeholders, such as the private sector, NGOs, and civil society. Thus, the paper take cognisance of the fact that the SADC countries together with the rest of the world that are signatory to the Kyoto Protocol ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995 and became legally obligated to adopt and implement policies and measures designed to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to such changes. As a result of this paper, both the technical understanding of key climate change issues and their economic and policy implications within the context of the Convention will be enhanced and the integration of climate issues into national development and economic planning in SADC wll be enabled.