South Africa cannot be allowed to fall short of its climate change mitigation measures and Paris Agreement statements, even though it is an emerging country still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, the country’s mitigation chief said. South African Presidential Climate Commission. Steve Nicholls he told delegates at last week’s ESG Africa conference.
Lately, many African countries have asked for leniency to meet climate change mitigation commitments, also requesting a delay in moving away from cheap and readily available fossil fuels as a result of their delayed and inhibited industrial and social development.
Many argue that developed nations built their economy, industrial base and power generation grid using large volumes of fossil fuels and that Africa should also be able to burn carbon-intensive fuels for a while longer. , while developing.
However, Nicholls said South Africa, in particular, is an intensive emitter of carbon, sharing a position of emissions contribution among the highest in the world.
For this reason, Nicholls said South Africa must reduce its emissions immediately.
“We have no chance of increasing our emissions.”
He considered whether there should be an intermediate period during which very poor countries should be allowed to increase their emissions so that they can develop socially and in terms of their industries.
“The answer is probably yes, but in very small areas. He is not in power [generation]. It doesn’t mean we can go and build big coal-fired power stations,” Nicholls said.
He added that gas was also not a route to be taken, despite its frequent marketing as a less carbon-intensive energy source. “It doesn’t mean we can do more oil and gas exploration,” Nicholls added.
He suggested that “there may be some opportunity” for African nations to increase their emissions in certain industrial activities, but that fossil fuel-intensive forms of power generation were not an option and that South Africa could not afford the luxury of expanding its fossil fuel combustion. by any measure.
Globally, measures to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 orC above the levels of the pre-industrial era, must be implemented by all countries, regardless of their stage of development. “. . . If we have to stay below 1.5 orC, we must be net zero by 2050. And for us [I mean] everyone, the whole planet. Africa must be too. Australia must be, everyone must be [compliant in mitigation measures]Nicholls stated.
As for what is needed to limit and reduce emissions, he said the pace of change had to be “enormous. . . It’s faster than you think, always.”
However, Nicholls hinted that many African nations, including South Africa, would not achieve sufficient emissions reductions by 2050 and that significant regional warming was on the horizon.
He said that realistically the 1.5 orObjective C would not be met. He added that maybe the increase can be limited to 2 orC by 2050; however, the analysis had shown that with the implementation of current policy measures, the rise in temperatures would be closer to 2.7 orc.
With this in mind, Nicholls said South Africa should expect a temperature rise of between 4 orC and 6 orC by 2050. This would lead to serious social ills, including a 25% reduction in agricultural production and an estimated 20 million climate migrants fleeing severe heat to regions that are already “inhospitable frontiers”.
