Climate bill ‘needs teeth’

The draft Climate Change Bill has the potential to unify South Africans in the battle against a catastrophe that threatens us all, but at the moment it lacks substance and clout.

That was one of the main threads that emerged at a stakeholder workshop on the first draft of the bill held at the Beach Hotel in Port Elizabeth yesterday.

Climate change activist Nina Allchurch said the bill had not looked further than the bills leading to the December 2015 Paris Agreement despite the flaws in that international deal.

“It just mimics those documents and supplies no tangible way to deal with greenhouse gases,” she said.

“There is no integration of water, soil or recycling and how they are affected by and have an impact on climate change. This is a toothless exercise and the proposed penalty of R5-million for greenhouse gas emission transgressors is a drop in the ocean. We need to move to business closure.”

The Paris Agreement was hailed by many world leaders, but critics argue there is still no commitment to an emissions pathway that will keep the planet below the 1.5°C temperature increase over pre-industrial levels needed to protect vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

Ubuntu Environmental Trust chairman Moki Cekisani said the draft bill needed to be conveyed in language that could be understood by the people most vulnerable to climate change.

It needed to speak to action on grassroots issues like how poor people could heat their homes in winter without endangering themselves or contributing to climate change, he said.

“The issue is not blacks or whites. It’s environment.

“I am political, but the environment can bring us together.”

Environmental activist and smallscale farmer Rushka Johnson said commercial agriculture was contributing to climate change through the heavy use of artificial fertilisers that released nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas.

“Using organic fertiliser helps counter climate change and also helps hold water in the soil.”

Capturing and recycling seeds was also better than the commercial farming practice of buying new seeds every time because in this way seeds adapted to climate change. The bill needed to capture issues like this, she said.

Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs regional environment manager Jeff Govender said climate change needed to be introduced to the school curriculum.

Asked about the government position that calls for a radical transformation to a low-carbon economy to be balanced against the need to protect jobs, Mirko Abresch, of German consultant GIZ, said the German experience was that alternative jobs could be delivered through the new green economy.

Andrew Gilder, of Climate Legal, said South Africa needed to recognise that the global economy would be increasingly constrained by the need to cut carbon emissions.

“So to be competitive we have to fit in with that reality.

“By doing so, we can also access development opportunities and financial aid from countries like Germany,” he said.

Members of the public have until August 8 to submit comments on the draft bill to Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa at climate@environment.gov.za

The draft bill is accessible at www.environment.gov.za – click on Legislation and then Bills.