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M I N I S T R Y F O R E N V I
R O N M E N T A L A F F A I R S A N D T O U R I S M
Keynote speech by
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs &
Tourism, opening the 2005 congress of the Institute of
Environment and Recreation Management in Port Elizabeth on 29
August 2005. Climate Change: Decisions Today to Protect
Tomorrow
Introduction
At the first
African Regional Conference on Environment and Sustainable
Development, held in Kampala in 1989, President Yoweri Museveni
of Uganda said: “No nation, however powerful, can legislate
against acid rain or ban it over its airspace. We have a common
future and we must defend it if we are to survive on this
planet.”
Two weeks ago I
joined environmental Ministers and leaders from 25 nations in
the small town of Illulisat in Greenland to discuss the defence
of our future. Our discussions, on the dangers of climate
change, were set against some of the most dramatic and
persuasive scenery in the world – the Arctic icecap which has
melted and thinned by almost 20% since 1950. As we spoke, rivers
of melt-water streamed down glaciers that have stood for
millennia. On the other side of the globe, the Larsen ice-shelf
in Antarctica has also thinned, in places, by as much as 18
meters since 1990.
There is, of
course, no need to travel to the ends of the Earth to observe
these warning signs. The ice fields that have covered the peaks
around Mount Kilimanjaro for nearly 12000 years have lost 82% of
their ice since 1912. If current climate trends hold true, the
glaciers on Africa's highest summit could disappear by 2020.
Even closer to home, we have seen Marion Island warm
significantly since 1980, warming of about 1 degree in the
Western Cape over 30 years, and even possible early warning
signs of desertification with a die-back of desert plants, such
as the Kokerboom, in the Northern Cape and southern Namibia.
In other words –
climate change is a powerful and threatening reality. I am very
pleased today to officially open this 2005 congress of the
Institute of Environment and Recreation Management, because it
provides an opportunity for policy and decision-makers from a
range of organisations and spheres of Government, to discuss the
impact of the decisions we make today on our shared future.
The ‘Life-Span’ of Decisions, the Costs of Inaction &
Opportunities for Growth
One of the more
comfortable fictions with which most people live is the sincere
belief that time is on our side. When we speak of the dangers of
global warming and climate change it is all too easy to shrug
off impacts that are predicted for 20 years or 50 years time. It
is human nature to focus our energy and attention on the most
immediate concerns. A key insight for visionary governance is
that our decisions today either build restrictive cages or allow
growing opportunities for tomorrow. As Churchill once said: “We
shape our buildings and afterwards they shape us.” This is even
more true of policy decisions.
Uninformed
decisions in Government, industry and even in households, could
lock South Africa’s next generation into even higher Greenhouse
Gas (GHG) emissions, inefficient energy use, and wasteful
patterns of production. Consider for a moment the lifespan of
some basic infrastructure decisions: every vehicle purchased has
a likely lifespan of at least ten years; factories and
industrial developments remain as they are for at least thirty
years; power stations and energy facilities last for fifty
years; homes and offices have a lifespan of one hundred years;
and decisions about land-use and development patterns last even
longer than that.
Apart from the
opportunity cost of our decisions, climate change will have a
direct cost to our economy. The Energy Research Centre at the
University of Cape Town has estimated that the yearly cost to
South Africa of not acting to adapt to the effects of climate
change now, will be about 1,5% of GDP by 2050 – roughly
equivalent to total annual Foreign Direct Investment in South
Africa at present. This is the cost of damages without the
benefits and costs of taking action, i.e. adaptation.
It is the belief
of our Department that this estimate is exceptionally
conservative, and excludes the almost-certain indirect costs.
Since this week sees that start of Tourism Month let us take
tourism as just one example. Contributing almost R100 billion
every year to our economy, it is one of South Africa’s most
important growth sectors. At least 30% of our tourism
attractions however centre on our natural environment – from
landscapes to wildlife. Climate change and the resulting loss in
biodiversity has the potential to do irreparable damage to key
sectors like tourism.
Whilst inaction
holds the potential for great costs to South Africa, the
decision to respond proactively to climate change holds great
opportunities for growth and development, especially as new
technologies are introduced, and new skills transferred from
developed countries. Achieving our 2013 additional renewable
energy target of 10 000 giga watt hours, for instance, could
have a positive impact on GDP of more than R1 billion, lead to
additional government revenue of R299 million, additional income
to low income households of R128 million, and water savings of
up to 16,5 million kilolitres per year – at the same time
creating just over 20 000 new jobs. Reaching our national target
of a 12% increase in energy efficiency will save money for
industry and consumers, and reduce the emissions of local and
global pollutants.
In other words,
as managers and leaders, it is our responsibility to the future
to ensure that the planning decisions we take or influence today
are environmentally sustainable. I would like to issue this
challenge to all members and affiliates of the Institute of
Environment and Recreation Management – to find the
opportunities in your own sphere of work to support and promote
our climate change response strategy.
Challenging
the Sceptics - National Climate Change Conference
In spite of the
scientific evidence, and the even-more persuasive directly
observable effects of climate change, there remain a few vocal
and hardened climate sceptics. Sceptics are useful for keeping
us on our toes but the balance of scientific evidence is
overwhelming and we should not be distracted by wasteful debates
with fringe scientists. We have won the scientific debate and
must now proceed on that basis. The focus is not whether our
climate is changing or if humans are contributing to the rate of
that change, but rather how best do we respond? The time has
come to apply the precautionary principle. It is time to act,
time to change behaviour, and time to prepare our communities to
deal with the social, economic and human impacts of climate
change.
In our national
and international response we must not only reduce our
contribution to the causes of climate change (mitigation), but
in a particularly vulnerable developing country like South
Africa adaptation must receive our highest priority. Amongst the
many focal areas for action are our needs to improve our
capabilities for Earth observation and climate monitoring;
bolstering our disaster management capacity to deal with extreme
weather events; implementing initiatives to conserve fresh water
supplies; and extensive further research into minimising the
likely impacts on agriculture. In other words – do we simply
strengthen our existing crops to make them more resilient or do
we need to switch what is planted from apples to grapes and
olives for instance? Where will our future grazing land be
situated? How do we avert the predicted reduction of up to 20%
in maize crop yields? These are the questions that must shape
our response.
In the
international arena, South Africa is poised to play a key role
as a bridge-builder. One of our most urgent challenges as the
global community is to convince all nations to join and support
the international effort to reduce the emissions of greenhouse
gasses. I have no doubt that the next few years will be crucial
to move us out of an approach of stalling, of avoidance, and of
excuses to one where we all accept our responsibility to deal
with climate change within an inclusive multilateral
international framework. Climate change is a global scourge and
requires a unified global partnership for action.
For this reason
Cabinet has approved the hosting of a major national conference
on climate change in October. The conference will run in two
parallel and overlapping sessions at Gallagher Estate in Gauteng.
From 17 to 19 October there will be a meeting of eminent
scientists from across the continent to advance scientific
methodologies and research findings relating to climate change
in Africa. From 18 to 20 October the National Consultative
Conference on Climate Change will be held to test and inform
South Africa’s policies, strategy and action plans; explore the
way forward on future commitments; generate inputs for the 2nd
National Communication on climate change; revise policies to
take into account new scientific developments; develop scenarios
for the different international models being proposed to reduce
GHG emissions; and more closely align our environmental approach
with our development priorities.
This
groundbreaking conference presents a direct challenge –
especially to African scientists and experts in the field. One
of the single most important priorities is for us to integrate
all available data into the global climate change models, to
bring Africa and its reality into the climate change mainstream.
Conclusion
I would like to
thank you for the invitation to join you at your congress today,
and to wish you well for your discussions over the next three
days.
It is our hope
that initiatives like the October conference, our climate change
response strategy, and partnerships with organisations such as
your own, will bring together enough knowledge and generate
enough consensus, to help us choose a different, better path for
our people and our future.
It is my great
pleasure to officially declare the 2005 IERM Congress open.
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