Programme Director;
On behalf of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, it is our singular honour to welcome our distinguished guests here today to this United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) breakfast wherein ministers from the continent of Africa, the UNDP and other stakeholders have converged to discuss ways and means in which this continent can take forward the agenda of sustainable development and deal with the effects of climate change.
As guests here today, we have a very important task of deliberating on the effects of climate change on our beautiful African continent. I would like to thank the United Nations for hosting us here today and I would like to especially thank them for their development programme which has had a long history of engagement with the African continent, especially in providing support in the areas of environment and energy needs.
Over the last two weeks of the COP17 discussions, we have seen that climate change is truly a global problem which requires a global solution.
In the awareness campaigns regarding climate change one often hears the call for urgent action on climate change being justified by reasons such as the need to safeguard our way of life and the obligation we have to future generations to be responsible.
These are indeed noble reasons for action but perhaps there is a third one that can be added. Climate change is a defining global social justice issue for our generation. If no action is taken there is a risk of condemning the world’s poorest people to generations of poverty. It is this reason in particular that speaks to the African continent, where we are faced with large numbers of the population already living in abject poverty and where we cannot afford climate change to make conditions worse.
It was the United Nation’s Human Development Report in 2008 that showed categorically that climate change is, and I quote: ‘the defining human development issue of our generation’. This report also predicted that if we fail to tackle climate change, global poverty will increase and development will be stunted. Ironically it is the poor that in many instances understand climate change far better than the scientists that are running the experiments and research.
It is the poverty ridden village in Kenya that was forced to evacuate their homes due to flash floods or the village in Ethiopia that is experiencing more frequent drought spells that truly understand the impacts of climate change. For these villages and communities the consequences of climate change are not a future threat but are a present lived reality. As an African continent we need to take climate change seriously and look at ways in which we can mitigate the effects and consequences. Research has shown that climate change poses serious macroeconomic, fiscal and financial challenges for low-income countries, which makes Africa a continent which is particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Many of the African countries are already located in hot tropical regions and are more heavily reliant on climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, and tourism. In the coming years, many African countries are likely to experience more severe droughts and declines in water supply, which would further aggravate food shortages on the continent, where 95 per cent of population depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Health and water systems may also come under increased stress in the coming decades from more intense and possibly more frequent natural disasters.
Coasts may be flooded, and populations may seek to migrate, raising the risk of social conflicts. It has been predicted that climate change will lead to rising insecurity and conflict as natural resources become scarcer and therefore many have foreseen that future wars will be fought not for land but for water.
Taking the example of agriculture in Africa, statistics show us that nearly half a billion people in Sub Saharan Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Half of these small holder farmers live in extreme poverty and a third of them are undernourished. For most of them moving away from subsistence into small scale agriculture production represents a chance for a brighter future.
The impact of global climate change threatens to undermine that hopeful future in a number of ways. Current predictions suggest that as temperatures rise, maize production in Southern Africa could decrease by nearly 30 per cent in 20 years. If an agricultural economy suffers a major climate related natural disaster such as a severe drought or debilitating storm as much as 25 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could be wiped out with after-effects lasting five years. Taking the example of energy, for the African poor, steadily increasing oil prices can easily become an issue of sheer survival if basic cooking and transportation needs are simply not affordable anymore. For many governments in Africa, dealing with oil prices becomes an issue of crisis management day in day out; both in terms of trade balance, fiscal policy and energy policy.
Yet, daily crisis managements like this, when the energy ministers’ main concern is the next oil bill, lowers government capacity for addressing more long-term strategic issues. Climate change is real for Africa and we therefore need to find real solutions to protect our environment in a manner that allows for future sustainable development.
This raises the important point that in developing countries, especially in the African continent, countries' efforts to adapt to climate change must fit in with their broad development agendas. Economic and social development is one of the most powerful ways to increase the capacity to adapt to climate change. This breakfast today is particularly focused on discussions around energy and the environment and it is therefore interesting to note that the McKinsey Global institute estimates that developing countries will generate nearly 80 per cent of growth in world energy demand between now and 2020. This demand for energy stems from a fundamental right to development.
About 1.6 billion people – a quarter of the world’s population - have no access to electricity. We cannot simply say to these people, that due to climate change they do not have the right to development. Societies must continue to grow in order to create the prosperity that is needed both to lift millions out of poverty and to cope with climate change. The key to achieving this, is working towards building a global low-carbon economy that enables sustainable long-term growth in both developed and developing countries.
This means seeking out new models of development which do not aspire to simply replicate the path to prosperity taken by the industrialised world. For energy, this means pursuing those innovative renewable energy alternatives on a small and large scale. For the environment, it means pursuing innovative waste management programmes, introducing carbon reduction incentive programmes and protecting the biodiversity contained in many of our natural protected areas.
Perhaps like no other continent, Africa understands the concept of natural capital in that we are blessed with such varied and expansive natural habitats. Choosing a low carbon growth path for a cleaner future will be taking the road less travelled in development terms but the rewards definitely outweigh the risks. Africa has a vast renewable energy potential and this can be cost-effectively exploited if the right
policies and supportive measures are in place.
The emphasis on building a global low carbon economy is on the word global. Climate change is by definition an international problem requiring a multilateral, global response. Governments around the world need to ensure that they deliver on the threefold aims of economic growth, social cohesion and environmental care. The underlying message in all these challenges is that we must recognise that in this globalised age, we all live interconnected lives in a small and fragile planet. It is only through cooperation and sharing that we can hope to deliver to all our citizens the basic needs and amenities that are their right in a modern world.
We need to start doing things differently. Nicholas Stern, in his report, labelled climate change as the greatest market failure the world has ever seen. We therefore cannot leave the market to its own devices. We need to start factoring the costs to the environment into our economic decisions. A clear example of this is seen in the South African energy market in which the low price we have been paying for coal generated electricity has been a far cry of the real cost of producing this electricity in environmental terms.
The challenge to developed and developing countries alike is that we cannot solve these 21st century challenges with 20th century ideas and technologies alone. As a continent we need to innovate and imitate ideas and technologies that will allow us to achieve a low carbon growth path.
As individual countries in the African continent we should be ready to engage in global efforts to mitigate climate change, which would provide new opportunities for sustainable development. Taking full advantage of these opportunities would require renewed steps to strengthen business environments, including regulatory and institutional frameworks. If managed effectively, the engagement of low-income countries in global mitigation efforts could result in sizable financial transfers toward these countries in compensation for their undertaking emission reductions.
Although there is considerable uncertainty about the magnitude of potential transfers, International Monetary Fund staff analysis suggest that, under some scenarios, transfers could reach around 10 per cent of GDP for African countries. If we do not address climate change we threaten to make poverty the future for many who are already living in poverty in the present. Let us therefore use this breakfast as an opportunity to engage in open and lively exchange, sharing ideas and giving direction to the UNDP as to where future work needs to be done in the energy and environment fields.
Let all of us gathered here this morning examine ways in which we can meet the challenge of delivering a low carbon economy that meets the needs of the poorest people in our continent.
As was said at the outset, confronting climate change is our shared challenge, therefore let our dealing with it be our shared opportunity and achievement.
I thank you!
