Question 110
Mr ENN Ngcobo (ANC) to ask the Minister of Science and Technology
(a) What steps she is taking to move South Africa from high carbon to a low carbon economy
(b)What schemes will be launched in 2009 to compete with countries like China, Finland and Australia that will adopt phase 11 of the Kyoto Protocol?
Reply:
1. The transition to low-carbon economy is a collective effort of many players’ different government departments, business and civil society as whole, with each playing a key role. At government level, there is a suite of interventions which can make the transition possible and this fall under two main categories development and demonstration of low-carbon technologies and implementation of sectoral actions, including the use of the developed and demonstrated technologies.
The former include the development of technologies locally and acquiring some through international mechanisms such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its derivatives like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The department is driving a technology localisation programme, under programme: socio-economic partnerships, which seeks to promote local development of technologies and to build required capacity and capability in local manufacturers/suppliers to be able to compete globally in the development of technologies.
It is however, acknowledged that our local technology manufacturers may not have adequate capacity/capability to develop some of these technologies required to transit to low-carbon economy or that some of these technologies may be significantly cheaper if imported from elsewhere. In both cases, the country’s position is to acquire some of these technologies which we cannot develop locally through multi-lateral agreements such as the UNFCCC as part of part technology transfer from developed countries to developing countries. Current initiatives by the department that could help the South Africa’s attempts to reduce global warming emissions, include the development of an electric car, known as joule, alternative and renewable (solar, wind and hydro power, even hydrogen) energy technologies. On the sustainable production and consumption front there are specific interventions (such as aquaculture) that have socio-economic benefits and also contribution to climate change mitigation. The development and demonstration of some of these technologies is done in partnership with other research councils and private sector and supported by government funding.
Other departments are driving sector-specific actions, through policies/strategies and set of actions. The impact of these sectoral actions and interventions feed back into the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), as a national focal point for climate change, for reporting purposes and as commitment to international agreements to which South Africa is party to.
2. There are no schemes to be set up by the department to compete with the three countries, but South Africa (led by DEAT) is pushing for global schemes under the UNFCCC framework that would benefit developing countries. The current national discussions around climate change multi-lateral negotiations under the UNFCCC and post 2012 Kyoto Protocol regime are around the possible global climate change deal in Copenhagen in December 2009 best case deal and what South Africa can live with. The current South Africa position, which is also an African and G77+China position, put forward the following demands:
* Measurable, reportable and verifiable technology transfer to developing countries
* Developed countries to finance interventions (both mitigation and adaptation) by developing counties. The creation of a combination of global finance schemes which developing countries can benefit from
* Creation of adaptation fund
* Training and capacity building for developing countries, which should be paid for by developed countries.
Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
25 September 2009
