FOLLOWING THE BUILD-UP TO COP 17: PREPARATIONS, EXPECTATIONS AND KEY PLAYERS

More than 30 000 people from 193 countries are to arrive in Durban for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) meeting, which the city will be hosting from 28th November - 9th December 2011. The world is currently buzzing with workshops, meetings, symposia in preparation for the event, which is expected to be as big as COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009. The participants at COP 15 included governments, NGOs, business, academia and media. Similarly, South Africa expects international delegates from the same sectors to attend.

It is generally agreed that business and government should work together in order to effectively address climate change with its connection to energy access and security, as they have complimentary goals. Governments want to improve quality of life for people and this requires goods and services delivered by business.Global target setting has not delivered the necessary emissions reductions in the years following the Kyoto Protocol agreement, which advocated “top-down” approaches. Durban’s focus is expected to be on developing bottom-up actions at a national level that should fit into an international framework.

So how have businesses and business councils been addressing the issue of climate change and environmental sustainability in the run-up to COP?

In November 2010, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and the National Business Initiative (NBI) agreed to work together to support government for a successful COP17 summit. BUSA will continue to play the leading role in synchronizing policy inputs into the national policy framework on climate change which in turn will inform the government position for COP. The NBI will be playing an advocacy, awareness raising and capacity building role to boost active business participation in the national policy process and at COP 17. South African companies voluntarily undertook several significant activities intended to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other innovative measures to embark on a path to sustainable business practices. These included investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy, measuring their carbon footprint, formulation of company level climate change strategies and engaging with national government on policy formulation. These initiatives were facilitated by platforms such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and Energy Efficiency Accord.

NGOs are also letting their voices be heard in preparation for COP. The South African government is establishing a Participation Fund with the purpose of contributing substantially to the costs incurred by civil society and NGOs in their preparations for the event. Recently, there have been voices coming up from NGOs and representatives of civil society about dwindling donor support for technical and financial contributions in their efforts to deal with climate change.

COP 17 affords South African companies the opportunity to raise their profile in terms of their environmental management. It specifically allows them to showcase their achievements on energy efficiency, carbon management, and innovation for sustainable business practices - thus facilitating and encouraging opportunities for international investors to respond to these advances. However, this opportunity can be harnessed as a collective through setting up a business pavilion for South African business. This has the added advantage of lowering costs that would be borne by individual companies.

The fund will help South African youth, women, rural communities, media and NGOs with preparations for the remaining pre-COP negotiations meetings taking place over the next two months, according to Edna Molewa, Environmental Affairs Minister.

The need to continue to consult on the key targets and programs as envisaged in the climate change policy was one of the key issues raised by civil society. They also called for joint programs and partnerships that would raise awareness and the development of local community-led and driven projects in climate adaptation.

Since this is the first major climate summit ever to be held in Africa, the event will be taking on a uniquely African perspective, and focusing on issues such as the effects of climate change on agriculture and health, particularly in relation to poverty-striken people. With this in mind, the African Ministerial Conference on Climate-smart Agriculture will be exploring challenges and attempting to grasp new opportunities for agriculture in Africa. The food security threat posed by climate change, particularly in Africa, is one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent, says Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson.

"Climate change is a serious threat to the agricultural field in the African continent. Africa has the responsibility to feed the world as well as its own African people, but we are faced with enormous climate change constraints such as severe drought, floods dreadful diseases,” she adds. "Speaking in one voice on agriculture as African ministers, food security, adaptation and mitigation will be our key focus of the new concept 'climate-smart agriculture' at the COP 17 conference."

DRC ambassador to South Africa, Bene M'Poko, said developed countries who are mainly the cause of climate change should commit to an absolute approach to curb the release of greenhouse gases at the COP 17 conference.

"Cancun gave us hope, but it was the developed countries who once again failed to show a stronger commitment to actually reduce greenhouse gases to avoid dangerous climate change. So this time, we are of the view that [we should] become more active and ... become the leaders of this discussion, but to follow protocol as well," he said.

Climate change talks will not only focus on energy use and carbon emissions. The effects of a changing climate on health, particularly the health of impoverished populations, will certainly feature in discussions. From a health perspective, the outlook is grim. Various illnesses will be addressed, malaria in particular. Most of South Africa has been malaria-free so far - but it is common cause that climate change will likely increase the range of the Anopheles mosquito that carries malaria. It will also modify the range of other insects that carry disease, such as the ticks that carry Congo fever. South Africa needs to be prepared for a possible rise in insect-borne diseases as a result of climate change.

As for water: "Water is the primary medium through which people in Africa will experience climate change impacts. By 2020, it is estimated that 75-million to 250-million Africans will be exposed to increased water stress," writes Dr Mary Galvin in a forthcoming publication by the Environmental Monitoring Group, Water and Climate Change: An Exploration for the Concerned and Curious. Projections indicate that South Africa will not benefit from the fact that warmer air holds more moisture: specific climatic features mean that, overall, we will be hotter but not get much increase in useful rainfall.

As a vital nutrient, water is crucial to a secure food supply. A reduced rainfall, combined with changes in times when crops can be planted and harvested because of higher temperatures, will likely add to greater food insecurity. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC, has estimated that for every 1C increase in temperature, yields of staple grains will drop by 10%. This, of course, like all the impacts of climate change, will hit the poor hardest.

Bearing these issues in mind, there is hope for a meaningful and binding treaty at COP17, although this hope is not shared by all. However, the efforts being made around the world on a daily basis extend a common understanding that if we do not act, and act now, our planet’s future is in jeopardy. We will no doubt be keeping a close eye on the events in Durban.

Sources:

http://cop17insouthafrica.wordpress.com/ http://www.mbendi.com/ http://www.fundsforngos.org http://www.skillsportal.co.za/ http://www.joburg.org.za/ http://www.nbi.org.za/ http://mg.co.za/