North West consultation on Climate Change Bill
Public consultations on the National Climate Change Bill are still underway, following the publication of the Bill for public comment in Government Gazette 41689 (Notice No. 636) by the National Ministry of Environmental Affairs.
Tomorrow, the team will visit the North West Province to further engage communities and all stakeholders. The purpose of the Bill is to build an effective climate change response and ensure the long-term, transition to a climate resilient and lower carbon economy and society.
The Bill acknowledges that anthropogenic climate change represents an urgent threat to human societies and the environment, and requires an effective, progressive and well-coordinated response. It further highlights that, amongst others, anticipated domestic climate change impacts have the potential to undermine the country’s development goals, and that responses to climate change raise unique challenges, thus requiring a legislative framework for the implementation of the country’s national climate change response.
The objectives of the proposed Act are to:
- Provide for the coordinated and integrated response to climate change and its impacts by all spheres of government in accordance with the principles of cooperative governance;
- Provide for the effective management of inevitable climate change impacts through enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to building social, economic, and environmental resilience and an adequate national adaptation response in the context of the global climate change response; and to
- Make a fair contribution to the global effort to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that avoids dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system within a time frame and in a manner that enables economic, employment, social and environmental development to proceed in a sustainable manner.
Section 24 of the Constitution of South Africa states that everyone has a right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being, and that all have the right to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generation, while allowing justifiable environmentally sustainable economic and social development.
The North West leg of the public consultation will take place as follows:
Date: Tuesday, 10 July 2018
Venue: The Royal Marang Hotel, Phokeng (Rustenburg)
Time: 09h00 – 14h00
Enquiries:
Ms Emelda Setlhako
Tel: 018 389 5684 / 5719
Cell: 060 745 4020
Email: ESetlhako@nwpg.gov.za
