By Anthony Dane (21 Sept 2011)

Yesterday I attended the Western Cape Climate Change Summit in Milnerton Cape Town. The outcome of this conference is intended to be the “voice of the Western Cape”, which will feed into the Department of Environmental Affairs’ programme for the COP17.

The summit started off disappointingly as we were informed that Ms Edna Molewa, Minister of Environmental Affairs, and Ms Helen Zille, Premier of the Western Cape, could not attend. The morning’s presentations, however, were informative and well worth attending.

Dr Guy Midgley (SANBI) presented the implications of climate change for the Western Cape. His key message: there remains uncertainty but the science is becoming more robust; the Western Cape is already feeling significant climate changes. The messages were very sobering but effectively there was nothing new.

Peter Lukey, acting DDG Environmental Affiars, provided an update on the National White Paper on Climate Change (the WP). Comments received on the National Green Paper on Climate Change have been addressed in the WP. The WP is undergoing final editing. It will be reviewed by Cabinet and hopefully made public by the end of October (ahead of COP17).

Public comments on the Green Paper were clustered around the following key issues:

• Mitigation: exactly how much?
• Sector contributions to mitigation: how much, by when and by whom?
• Mitigation actions need to be informed: currently they resemble “shopping lists.”
• The mitigation / adaptation split is a false separation in many instances: it undermines projects that achieve both mitigation and adaptation benefits.
• Adaptation needs to be risk-based (more informed): who do we hold accountable?
• Measurable, reportable and verifiable data (MRV): concerns were raised.

Some of the measures to addresses these issues in the WP are included below:

• The Peak, Plateau and Decline trajectory has been clearly defined as the baseline for measuring the efficacy of mitigation instruments
• A risk-based process has been followed. This is built on a good information base that the department has been building up.
• To address concerns around alignment there will be an ongoing audit and review process to mainstream climate change into all other plans / strategies.

Lukey highlighted that the WP has attempted to be more informed, less descriptive and more process driven (more objective and information based). Finally he highlighted South Africa’s intention at COP17 is to facilitate and encourage the “achievement of big things.” Let’s hope we get that right.

The afternoon session was less useful and I am not sure that the discussions contributed towards the collective “voice of the Western Cape.” I understand that small summits will be taking place throughout the Western Cape. This will hopefully include a more representative sample of the Western Cape population.

In my opinion the participants at the summit were largely the converted. The overall tone was aspirational and lacked pragmatic recommendations and plans going forward. This was evidenced by quotes such as “we cannot afford not to take urgent action,” “is it about need or is it about greed?” and “all we really need is love.”

I feel like we should have moved beyond this sort of rhetoric. CEOs would not have taken us seriously.