SA Faces up to Global Warming

Development of awareness of global warming in South Africa

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2004 - South Africa draws up battle plan on global warming

Southern Africa was being fundamentally affected by climate change - and the cabinet would consider a comprehensive response strategy this week, Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced.

He was opening EnviroMedia 2004, a southern African environmental journalism and media conference in Johannesburg.

The strategy will be publicly released tomorrow.

In his prepared speech, which he did not read out - he quipped that parts of it were too boring - Van Schalkwyk said the implications of climate change - or "global warming" - were among the most critical facing the region.

Southern African temperatures were expected to rise by up to 3¼C by the middle of the century, with rainfall expected to fall by as much as 10%.

In the Earth's geological history, a temperature rise of 6¼C resulted in one of the mass extinctions.

"Rainfall is decreasing, sea levels are rising and all indications point to human activity as the direct cause.

"Cabinet will this week be considering a comprehensive climate change response strategy for South Africa, with in-depth recommendations for action across all government departments."

Speaking off the cuff, Van Schalkwyk clarified weekend newspaper reports suggesting he was about to lift the ban on 4x4s on many beaches, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal.

He said he was a "hardcore supporter" of the 4x4 ban, "because we saw what they did to our beaches, and we've now cleaned up".

But the ban did make provision for some beaches to be opened to recreational use by 4x4s where a good case could be made.

But there had to be comprehensive environmental impact assessments before this could be considered.

He said claims that the 4x4 ban had destroyed some local economies - such as that of St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal - would be investigated thoroughly.

"We must deal with fact - we will launch a socio-economic study to find out exactly what the impact of the ban was.

"There will be no large-scale opening of that door."

Van Schalkwyk also noted complaints that 4x4 owners had simply transferred their activities to Mozambican beaches where they were allegedly causing substantial damage.

"That is ... something we will have to address in a regional context."

Saying South Africa had not been as effective as it should have been in enforcing environmental law, he added: "We will use the 'Green Scorpions' (law enforcement branch of his department) in the next few months to deal with pollution, and we will do that in quite a decisive way."

In his prepared speech, Van Schalkwyk said his department believed there was "a pressing need" for a more focused environmental training capacity at top journalism schools.

-John Yeld

2005 – South Africa faces up to global warming

19 August 2005 - South Africa is taking part in the Greenland Dialogue, a week-long ministerial meeting to discuss the Kyoto Protocol and climate change.

Hosted by the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the meeting includes representatives from 25 developed and developing countries, including France, Sweden, China, Brazil and Germany. South Africa's representative is Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

The Greenland Dialogue aims to increase international understanding of the challenges in future international climate policies.

While there, Van Schalkwyk visited the Ilulissat Ice Fjord World Heritage Site and the Greenland ice cap to observe the decline in the extent of sea ice in the North Pole - a result of global warming.

"Our experiences in Greenland have dramatically demonstrated the effects of the unprecedented rise in arctic temperatures," he said.

"The melting of the arctic glaciers, the retreat of the ice cap and the global rise in sea levels is clearly a cause for major international concern."

Climate change is one of the most important global challenges facing the international community, he said. It is a threat to all nations, and requires a coordinated, determined and united response.

One of the main aims of the meeting is to discuss ways of making the Kyoto Protocol more effective, to successfully tackle global warming.

The protocol calls for most of the developed world to make significant reductions in carbon emissions by 2012.

The Greenland Dialogue comes after discussions on climate change at the G8 meeting in Gleneagles in July, and anticipates the follow-up meeting of the G8 to be held in London in November.

Van Schalkwyk will attend that meeting as part of the build-up to the first international gathering of parties under the Kyoto Protocol, be held in Montreal in December.

Climate change in South Africa

South Africa is holding its own regional initiatives: a climate change conference of African scientists is currently under way in Gauteng, and a National Consultative Conference in October is to examine the policy implications of climate change.

At the Greenland Dialogue, Van Schalkwyk said there was clear evidence of climate change in South Africa - which would continue even if greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised. He said global warming was a threat to the country's sustainable development.

Expanded desertification in semi-arid areas is already a feature of the South African landscape, he said. There is also a demonstrated dieback of desert plants, such as the kokerboom, in the Northern Cape and southern Namibia.

In wetter areas in eastern South Africa there is a marked increase in the density of thickets, such as thorn trees.

"Bush encroachment into productive grasslands in summer rainfall regions has implications for agricultural activities such as cattle and sheep ranching, wildlife management and other ecosystem services," he said.

Climate change could make Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and even Gauteng malaria zones by 2050 if no control measures are implemented.

"The number of South Africans at high malaria risk may quadruple by 2020 - at an added cost to the country of between 0.1% and 0.2% of GDP," Van Schalkwyk said.

Global warming models suggest a reduction of the area covered by the current biomes in South Africa by 35% to 55% in the next 50 years.

In a hotter and drier climate maize production would decrease by up to 20%, mostly in the drier western regions of the country. Marginal areas of maize production might well fail, especially for resource-poor farmers unable to adapt rapidly.

"South Africa's vulnerability to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including the costs of mitigation and adaptation, the potential loss of markets, and the consequent impact on sustainable development and poverty alleviation underline the need to create a balance between adaptation, mitigation and managing the socioeconomic impacts of climate change response measures," Van Schalkwyk said.

2006 - Scorched South Africa's changing climate by Leonie S Joubert

Scorched was launched on 2 November 2006 at the succulent conservatory in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Leonie's speech:

I had written today’s speech in at least half a dozen different ways – each time trying to fashion some kind of a window onto this messy and unhappy subject which I hoped, just for tonight, would offer a view which wouldn’t sour the taste of this delicious wine in our mouths.

Then, when I thought I finally had it pegged down, British economist Sir Nicholas Stern scuppered the entire thing. On Monday this week he handing to the British Cabinet a report which explores the economic costs of climate change. His story didn’t just grab newspaper headlines, it frog marched its way across front pages, business inserts and opinion sections everywhere.

So it was right back to the drawing board, this time with Stern’s paperwork strewn across my desk

.His conclusions draw finer details onto the larger body of suspicion that we’ve had for a long time. If we continue to pump greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere as we are now: we will bring about an economic slump equivalent to the Great Depression in the 1930s; a “business as usual” approach will drive global temperatures 5°C higher than pre-industrial levels; global living standards will be slashed by 5 to 20%; carbon dioxide pollution shunted up into our skies will cause damage amounting to US$85 per metric tonne.

Stern speaks the language of policymakers and economists and has produced one of the most important documents on the subject to emerge in recent years

The problem with the Stern report and every other economic summary of the value of the world and all the services it provides, is that they don’t capture the way the wind stirs the leaves of the silvertree protea, making them flash like fish scales in the water. They fail to record the nuanced scent of the Darling Ivory orchid as it whispers to its solitary pollinating bee. Economic reports don’t feel the rumble in the chest of an elephant mother as she natters quietly with her young. Nor do they eavesdrop on the soprano whistles, throaty croaks and staccato chirrups of frogs singing to their mates in the rainy season.

Neither do they capture the space left in the air above coastal fynbos when the sandveld copper butterfly no longer flies nor the loss to the renosterveld community when the last geometric tortoise dies. They don’t hear the crackle of the bush as the cinders of another fire cool. Nor do they trace the lines in mud as a riverbed dries and splits. They don’t silhouette the taught and bloated belly of a malnourished child living far from First World excess.

I tried, through the journey of these pages, to put a real face onto the drier facts and figures of climate change. Mostly, I tried to make it fundamentally local – to capture the call of the black backed jackal in an African dusk or describe the psychedelic mayhem of Sodwana’s reefs.

It’s poignant that we’re launching the book here tonight because we’re in the heart of one of the most rare and botanically diverse plant communities on the planet – a diversity hotspot, whose conservation is regarded by ecologists as needing international priority. But it is also one where the natural environment is most vulnerably to losing its many and varied plants and animals as climate change sets in.

We’re standing on something of a Noah’s Ark that has sprung many leaks: the desert is pushing down from the north, the westerly storm tracks which bring our winter rain are increasingly missing the continent and dumping their water out at sea, temperatures are climbing, droughts are hotter and more frequent, fires are more ferocious than ever.

I don’t envy the scientists who, in the face of this change, already know they must perform a kind of ecological triage with species of the Cape – they must decide which are the terminal cases and those which might stand a small chance of survival. Then they must throw their full weight behind saving the salvageable while the others drift away from us into non-existence.

In the mean time the writers amongst us can scrabble about in an effort to capture the last faltering call of a ghost frog that now only occurs in six south-facing streams on that chunk of ancient rock behind us. Or document the glint of early morning sun on the petals of an orchid which now occurs on a single conservancy in the Swartland within an expanding sea of wheat and vineyards.

I have calculated that if I am lucky enough to live for sixty more years, if my mind holds, and if I were able to write a short cameo of a different Cape plant every week for the duration of those sixty years – by the time I turn 94, I will only have covered about a third of all the plants that occur naturally in this region. I would need another two lifetimes to get through the rest. And a few more to give equal measure to all the insects, reptiles, birds, fish, soil microbes, fungi…

This is our role as writers – to distill from the air around us the very essence of life which no economic report can capture. And to do so before the inevitable arrival of death.

2010