Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

Bugs and climate change: What a warmer, wetter world means for insects and the crops they eat

By Esther Ndumi Ngumbi• 8 September 2021


(Photos: Unsplash / Henry Lai / Glen Carrie / David Edgar)

Climate change will affect agricultural plants and the insects associated with them. These effects are complex, but it is certain pest pressures will increase. There is a need for more insect monitoring and forecasting and modelling so that we can develop adaptation strategies.

Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology; African-American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

First published by the Conversation

A new report has been released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the UN’s authority on climate change — which revealed the latest research on how the Earth is changing and what those changes will mean for the future.

The report shows there’s been a dramatic increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and temperatures, suggesting that Earth is likely to reach the crucial 1.5℃ warming limit in the early 2030s. There are also dramatic changes in precipitation — water that’s released from clouds, such as rain, snow or hail.

As an entomologist, I study insects and how climate change stressors — such as flooding and drought — affect what insects eat. I’m also a food security advocate.

The report’s projections caused me to reflect on the many direct and indirect impacts that a warmer and wetter world will have on insects, their natural enemies, plants and African food security.

Across the African continent, recent years brought out some of these extremes, showing what a serious issue this is.

For instance, in southern Africa, the 2016 outbreak of the fall armyworm has continued to spread because of increased rainfall and elevated temperatures — perfect conditions for them to breed and grow quickly. These conditions also supported the growth of more than 70 host plants that are fed upon by the fall armyworm.

There’s also a major desert locust outbreak in eastern Africa which started in 2019. It spread due to unusually heavy rainfall that created the perfect environment for locusts to breed and increase in numbers and size. The rains also support the growth of vegetation to feed them.

Here I present a closer look at some of the report’s key findings and show how changes could affect insects and, indirectly, us.

Elevated carbon dioxide levels

Global levels of CO₂ are already high, and they’re expected to continue rising. While elevation in CO₂ does not directly impact insects, it can alter plants’ nutritional quality and chemistry. This will indirectly affect insect herbivores.

For instance, according to recent research, elevated CO₂ reduces the nutritional quality of plant tissues by reducing protein concentrations and certain amino acids in the leaves. To compensate, insect herbivores eat more.

Elevated CO₂ levels can also affect an insect’s development, driving down their numbers — as seen in this study of dung beetles.

Rising temperatures

The report says that global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.

Temperature regulates insects’ physiology and metabolism. An increase in temperature increases physiological activity and, therefore, metabolic rates. Insects must eat more to survive and it’s expected that insect herbivores will consume more and grow faster.

This will lead to increases in the population growth rate of certain insects. Because they grow fast they’ll reproduce more. Their numbers will multiply and this will ultimately lead to more crop damage.

Previous research projected that with every increase in one degree of global warming, losses of crops to insects will increase from 10% to 25%.

Drought and flooding

The changing climate is expected to change precipitation patterns — such as rainfall. The report anticipates increased and frequent drought and flooding incidences across the world. These environmental stressors will have an impact on plant productivity, plant chemistry, defences, nutritional quality, palatability and digestibility.

Consequently, insects eat more plants and this can result in more crop damage.

On the other hand, increased precipitation can support fresh vegetation (food for insects) and can facilitate population buildup of insects. As seen with the desert locust, for example, prolonged rain allowed them to have food, multiply in numbers and spread. This was also the case for the fall armyworm; plentiful rains supported the growth of their host plants. When food for the insects is no longer a limiting factor, their populations continue to build up.

Reducing effectiveness of natural enemies

All insects have natural enemies or predators. For example, the maize stem borer — a significant insect pest of maize across Africa — has several natural enemies, such as Cotesia flavipes. These predators reduce the populations of insects and further reduce the need to use pesticides to control insect pests.

Predators can be affected by climate changes in many ways. For instance, they can be sensitive to increases in temperature and precipitation, ultimately reducing their numbers. Fewer natural enemies could result in more insect pests. One study, which modelled temperature changes on stem borers in East Africa, showed an increase in their numbers and a decrease in impact by natural enemies.

In addition, because of climate change, both crop distribution ranges and insects will shift. As they seek out conditions that suit them, insects move to new areas that lack their natural enemies. This will cause their populations to grow, resulting in more crop damage.

More palatable food

Because of climate change, weather extremes are likely to happen together.

According to research, plants exposed to double stresses may become even more palatable to insects. This is because when two stressors (say drought and insect herbivory, flooding and insect herbivory, or elevated carbon dioxide and elevated heat) happen together, their impact on crops can be additive or synergistic. This would lead to increased crop damage and reduced crop yields.

What can be done?

Climate change will affect agricultural plants and the insects associated with them. These effects are complex, but it is certain pest pressures will increase. There is a need for more insect monitoring and forecasting and modelling so that we can develop adaptation strategies.

In addition, countries should continue to monitor, share information and use historical data and modelling to predict and prepare for an uncertain future that is expected to have hungrier insect pests, with impacts on crop productivity and food security. DM/OBP

[Richprins]

I thought insects were decreasing? They certainly are here?

[Lisbeth]

That's also what I have been reading all over

[Lisbeth]

The ozone hole is now bigger than Antarctica


© AP/European Space Agency, ESA

The ozone hole this year has reached an extension greater than that of Antarctica, one of the largest and deepest in recent years: this is shown by the observations of the Sentinel 5P satellite, one of the Earth sentinels of the Copernicus program managed by the Commission European and European Space Agency (ESA).


The data was collected as part of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) of the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts (Ecmwf). The figure comes on the occasion of the International Day for the Observation of the Ozone Layer, which is celebrated today.

The hole in the ozone layer forms every year during the austral spring, between August and October, and reaches its maximum between mid-September and mid-October. This year, after a rather normal initial condition, it increased significantly last week and is now larger than 75% of the holes detected in this same period of the year since 1979.

According to Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of Cams, there is still no cause for concern, even if this year's hole "is similar to that of 2020, which was one of the longest ever recorded". For Antje Inness of the ECMWF, "the monitoring of the ozone hole at the South Pole must be interpreted with caution, given that size, duration and concentrations are influenced by local winds. However, we expect it to close by 2050 ”.

With the end of the southern hemisphere spring season, as temperatures in the upper stratosphere begin to rise, ozone depletion slows, the polar vortex weakens and eventually breaks down, bringing ozone levels to normal by December.

https://www.cdt.ch/mondo/il-buco-dell-o ... d=O4GPLdtT

[Lisbeth]

Young activists demand better leadership on environment in run-up to global climate strikes

By Onke Ngcuka• 21 September 2021


Young people are demanding that the climate crisis be taken seriously, and will come together on Friday for the global climate strikes under the theme #UprootTheSystem. (Photo: Mawande Sobetwa)

Young people who will bear the brunt of global warming consequences are demanding more concrete action from their leaders. The activists are calling for a new system that accommodates and adapts to a changing climate.

Young climate activists came together to make their voices heard at a media briefing before the global climate strikes on Friday. Under the theme #UprootTheSystem they are demanding systemic change and calling for an end to the undermining of the climate crisis.

The activists included South Africa’s Gabriel Klaasen from the African Climate Alliance (ACA), Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, Ugandan Vanessa Nakata from the “Rise Up Movement”, Dohyeon Kim from South Korea representing “‘Youth 4 Climate Action” and Germany’s Luisa Neubauer from “‘Fridays for Future”.

During the virtual briefing, the activists said they were exhausted by their respective governments’ “tokenistic engagements” with the youth, and that their leaders were not taking them or the climate crisis seriously.

Thunberg said the theme “Uproot The System” symbolises that the climate crisis does not exist in a vacuum, and is caused by the same factors that contribute to global injustices.

“We cannot just solve one of these crises without solving the others. That’s why we are striking now – to uproot the system – and are focusing on intersectionality and on the people in the most affected areas,” the 18-year-old activist said.

Klaasen (23) said the ACA and allied organisations had a list of seven demands. Some of these include:

• A 1.5°C compatible Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) target for COP26;

• A climate crisis joint standing committee in Parliament;

• A climate justice charter in the Constitution;

• Accessible climate literacy and adaptation in the national education system;

• Fossil fuel electricity generation elimination by 2035;

• A transformation of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) – a key point for the South African strike.

“The DMRE is the biggest stumbling block towards our future that is defined by climate and social justice, and we need them to either step out of the way or adopt progressive change going forward to a just future and transition to renewables and alternatives. Every year, more than 20,000 South Africans die of air pollution caused by burning coal and the investment in fossil fuels,” Klaasen said.

The local theme of the strike in which Klaasen will be participating will be “Uproot the DMRE”, slotting into the global theme, “Uproot the system”.

The climate crisis and the pandemic pause

Thunberg said the climate crisis did not disappear because of the pandemic, but that it was now more urgent than ever. Although slow demand for fossil fuel products during the global lockdowns seemed to be a step in the right direction as far as curbing emissions was concerned, this didn’t solve the climate crisis. Thunberg said one of the reasons the strike should go ahead was to demand actual change in a system that was downplaying the crisis.



“We will go back on the streets now – of course it will look different… we will be back on the streets to show we have not disappeared and we are still demanding climate action and climate justice,” Thunberg said.

Emissions in 2021 are expected to increase by 4.8% as demand for coal, oil and gas rebounds alongside the global economic recovery, leaving this year’s emissions at about 400 Mt of carbon dioxide – 1.2% below the 2019 peak.

For Vanessa Nakate, it is important to participate in the strike and represent Africans who are at the receiving end of climate crisis consequences, even though the continent contributes the lowest in global emissions, at just about 3%.

As a result of the climate crisis, the Ugandan activist said Africans have lost their lives and livelihoods, and the lack of government response has resulted in agony, starvation and death.

“This is why we will be striking on the 24 September – to demand climate justice. We have been speaking out… we’ve been doing everything we can to remind the leaders and demand from the leaders what rightfully belongs to us,” the 24-year-old activist said.

“But it’s also important this Friday to rise up again for the people and for the planet, because the climate crisis wasn’t put to rest during the pandemic.”

As the climate conference COP26 nears, Nakate said, “we expect that leaders are going to give talks, speeches and sweet-nothings”. She added that achieving net-zero goals should not include new fossil fuel projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which will see the construction of an oil transportation route connecting Uganda to Tanzania.

Youth climate action and tokenism

Dohyeon Kim said that as a result of South Korea’s parliament not taking the youth seriously during climate crisis dialogues, the activists had withdrawn from the committee and were building an alternative, inclusive and democratic system.

“On 24 September, Youth 4 Climate Action Korea is launching a climate assembly for the people by the people,” said Kim.

“Those on the frontlines of climate change have been left unrepresented… the committee has continuously tokenised young people and has failed to come up with a concrete net-zero plan. We realised that it was simply not enough to have a seat at the table, but that we had to flip the table.

“Ordinary people just like me will get together to push our government to submit a more realistic NDC that will guarantee our survival on this planet,” the 17-year-old continued.

The activist said politicians in South Korea were speaking of cutting emissions by 35% by 2030 – a number Kim sees as timid and shameful.

Developed nations must take responsibility

Luisa Neubauer said the strike was in solidarity with those most affected by the climate crisis across the globe.

“We know that climate justice must always include the highest emitting countries and those responsible historically to pay their debt and rise up to the responsibility,” the 25-year-old German activist said.

Developing nations have previously pledged climate finance to the amount of $1-billion per year until 2020. However, these pledges have failed to materialise, leaving developing countries in the same position when it came to climate adaptation, while developed nations have made moves (though not enough) to combat the climate crisis.

Nakate said the financial climate pledges were a step in the right direction in terms of those countries responsible for the climate crisis being held accountable, but added that she was disappointed when those countries failed to deliver on their promises.

Thunberg said moral obligations were at the heart of the climate crisis and strikes, and questioned how developed nations that are more historically responsible were expecting developing nations to take climate action without financial obligations being met.

“Equity and justice must be at the heart of climate justice if we really want the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale,” Kim said, adding that climate finance is what makes the Paris agreement work globally.

“We need to see that action (financial climate pledges) come forward. But at the same time, we need to make sure our governments are able to make use of that climate finance. It makes no sense getting [those funds] and having corruption [squander] it. And that’s something we’ve seen in South Africa quite a lot – alongside money comes corruption,” Klaasen said. DM/OBP

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

Dark days ahead: A bleak future awaits future generations if world leaders and industries continue to ignore climate crisis

By Julia Evans• 29 September 2021


Young activists outside Parliament in Cape Town, 24 September 2021. The protest was tied to the global strike and the national DMRE strike. (Photos: Stella Hertantyo)

You’ve heard it all before. Climate crisis. Global warming. 1.5°C threshold. Tipping point. Day Zero. But what does any of it mean in practical terms? What is going to happen to us 10, 20 or 30 years down the line?

As part of their #CancelCoal campaign, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), the African Climate Alliance, groundWork and the Vukani Environmental Movement in Action commissioned two reports by climate experts Nicholas King and Francois Engelbrecht that looked at what South Africa will be like over the next 50 years if we continue with a business-as-usual approach to climate change.

The reports highlight how the children of today, and future generations, will bear the brunt of the effects of climate change.


‘I should be living my life, going to school, being with friends, but instead like many I have to fight for my future,’ says youth activist Yola Mgogwana. (Photo: Faithful to Nature)

Yola Mgogwana, a 13-year-old climate activist from Khayelitsha, said at the virtual launch of the reports on Tuesday, “I should be living my life, going to school, being with friends, but instead, like many, I have to fight for my future.

“The older generation has ripped an irreparable hole in the ozone layer, yet we are the ones who are facing the most impacts.”

Dr Francois Engelbrecht, professor of climatology and lead author on several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, co-authored the report with the late Robert Scholes. It considered climate impacts in the southern African region in the 21st century.

The report found that global warming is estimated to have increased by 1.1°C for the period 2011-2020, relative to the period 1850-1900.

And we aren’t stopping there. The report states, “the climate will continue to change throughout the 21st century, to a degree mostly determined by human actions and the policies that guide them”.

What does this mean?

Engelbrecht’s report finds that in a future where global warming exceeds 3°C, we face much higher risks than a future that limits global warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C above pre-industrial levels. But if we were to reach the latter futures, it would require urgent and immense effort to reduce greenhouse gases.


(Image: The Centre for Environmental Rights)

Additionally, it’s important to consider that South Africa is especially vulnerable to climate change because warming in the interior of southern Africa is occurring at about twice the global average.

Engelbrecht said during the virtual launch, “the real reason why these temperature thresholds are thought to be dangerous is because they define what is known as ‘global tipping points’ in the earth’s system. So this report assesses that the possibility exists, that between 1.5 and 2°C of global warming, we may trigger the irreversible melting of both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

“Which means our generation is committing future generations to a different planet, a different coastline. A smaller planet, one can say, with less living space.”

Engelbrecht presents two futures: one that remains dependent on fossil fuels as the main source of energy through the 21st century. And the opposite — where there are massive cuts in emissions, starting immediately, achieving net zero carbon dioxide emission by 2050.

“These are, of course, extremely different, completely diverse possible futures. And as we are meeting here today, it is still humanity’s choice which pathway we will be taking.”

So, what would our future hold if not enough changes are made?

Global change expert Prof Nicholas King authored a report that considered what basic lifestyles and services will look like under climate change impacts for future generations by 2030, 2040 and beyond.

King’s report emphasises how the effects of climate change will significantly alter the lives of today’s and tomorrow’s youth.


(Image: The Centre for Environmental Rights)

“[Young] generations are currently being abandoned, basically, by today’s adults, the leaders, the people they trust, to face a range of increasingly severe impacts caused by climate change,” said King during the virtual launch.

“Their daily lives will be vastly more difficult, [their] quality of life and economic opportunities… and many will suffer premature death from any of extreme weather events, stress, exacerbated disease outbreaks and/or violent social upheaval and conflict. As well as what is becoming increasingly apparent… stress-induced suicide with the hopelessness of seeing no future for themselves.”

These are some of the main things that will disproportionately affect the youth and future generations to come.

Access to freshwater

Freshwater availability and quality will significantly affect the children of today and future generations.

King said during the launch, “South Africa is already a semi-arid country, access to water and sanitation is already highly problematic, particularly with things like collapsing sanitation infrastructure.

“And we already have problems with poor water quality, where, for example, diarrhoea is already the biggest killer of under five-year-olds in South Africa.”

Engelbrecht’s report states, “Freshwater availability, already critically limited in southern Africa, will be reduced in future as a result of decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation. These impacts will amplify as the level of global warming increases. Water quality also decreases in a warmer, drier southern Africa, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases.”


(Image: The Centre for Environmental Rights)

King’s report says that “with ongoing rising temperatures and drought conditions, it is virtually certain that these events will collapse crop production, kill livestock and greatly exacerbate food insecurity”.

The report found that limited access to freshwater would have negative impacts on girls and women. As they are traditionally tasked with fetching water for their family, they will have to spend more time sourcing and fetching water as a result.

“And there are a whole bunch of negative impacts associated there too, for women and the girls — missed schooling for the girls, being out of class.”

In the Western Cape between 2021 and 2040, King’s report predicts that residents from burgeoning informal settlements such as Khayelitsha will spend much of their days waiting in queues at standpipes or paying inflated prices for water from tankers.

Young activist Yola Mgogwana said during the virtual launch, “Currently in Khayelitsha, drains are blocked and we are literally swimming in sewage. I already fetch water from a communal tap and use the bucket system which leaves people like me exposed to dangers and gender-based violence.”

Finally, King’s report predicts food preparation, general hygiene and sanitation will become more difficult, affecting children’s health, their ability to attend school and their development.

Food security

Engelbrecht’s report finds, “A high likelihood that agricultural production in southern Africa, including staple crops and livestock, will be reduced relative to the no-climate-change case.

“This is because the region is already beyond the temperature optimum for most crop and livestock production, and crop and forage production in an already dry country decreases if soil moisture decreases further.”

For example, in Limpopo, King’s report predicts that this province will no longer be able to depend on rain-fed agriculture and rangeland grazing for livestock. The report says that “food insecurity will very likely quickly become a major cause of socio-economic stress. Commercial farmers will likely struggle to obtain sufficient irrigation water, and conflict over water use and allocations will rise”.

Heat and ability to work outdoors

King said, “Heat stress, with rising temperatures, will make working outdoors — field labour, agricultural labour — simply untenable for most of the year, and with reduced hours… This will have severe consequences for rural livelihoods for subsistence farmers, but also for commercial farmers and all other external workers and labourers. Farming communities are those being hardest hit at the moment, with the least ability to mitigate these impacts.”


(Image: The Centre for Environmental Rights)

King’s report predicts that in Limpopo, between 2041 and 2060, temperatures will increase to the point that it will “almost certainly be too hot to work outdoors for most of the year, curtailing almost all agricultural fieldwork and manual labour”.

Engelbrecht’s report says, “The number, intensity and duration of heat waves in South Africa will increase steeply in future as a result of global warming. The capacity to perform manual labour out of doors decreases dramatically as the occurrence of heat waves increases. Human mortality increases, particularly in urban areas with inadequate housing, but may in some locations be offset by decreases in mortality as a result of fewer cold spells.”

Emotional wellbeing

King says the physical, social, economic and cultural disruption that the effects of climate change causes will have a significant impact on children’s emotional wellbeing.

Many families will be forced to migrate due to the effects of climate change and a collapsing economy.

“Forced migrations will also lead to the loss of spatial and cultural identities for people in the regions where they’ve grown up,” says King. He says moving to informal settlements in unfamiliar geographic regions “will be especially traumatic for children who will be losing everything that is familiar to them, often displaced from family units.

“Currently, climate disasters have caused more internal displacement than war for one of the first times, with over 30 million people being displaced last year, globally. And a large proportion of those are in southern Africa, as we mentioned, the cyclones in Mozambique.”

King adds that the “increasing inability to cope with climate impacts, and the knowledge that government services are overwhelmed and literally unable to help most people, will create feelings of abandonment, hopelessness and depression amongst a growing proportion of the population as they feel basically betrayed by those who should be securing their safety and their future”.


(Image: The Centre for Environmental Rights)

Teenager Yola Mgogwana said, “we are not (being) taken seriously by the government and decision makers. Our voices are used as tokens. But we are not your tokens… we are taking action today and all days to come”.

If we want to avoid these most dangerous impacts of climate change, what should we do?

Children were suffering the most, said King. “Intergenerational inequity will rapidly increase without a transformational change in our energy policy right now, and within a global energy policy based essentially on no new fossil fuel investments and rapid phase-out of all existing fossils”.

Engelbrecht presented the International Energy Agency report that came out in May this year, which estimated that South Africa will need an annual investment in alternative forms of energy (mostly renewables) of about $5-trillion from 2030 to 2050, to achieve the net zero emissions reduction target by 2050.

Engelbrecht added that the IPCC 2018 report had similar estimations.

“These are massive investments,” says Engelbrecht, “and there may well of course be costs to economies in the short term. But overall, the International Energy Agency estimated that this investment in renewables may well result in adding about 0.4% growth to the annual global GDP during this period of the transition, so there are also immense economic opportunities in pursuing this transition.” DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

Mantashe punts ‘clean’ coal at mining summit while Cabinet colleagues pitch green energy finance to rich countries

By Ethan van Diemen• 3 October 2021


From left: Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe. (Photo: Flickr / GCIS) | Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan. (Photo: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images) | Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) | Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Barbara Creecy. (Photo: Ruvan Boshoff)

While he supposedly had to attend to a family commitment that precluded his attendance at a significant green finance meeting, Gwede Mantashe’s verified Twitter account was sharing videos of the minister extolling the virtues of coal mining and power to delegates at the Limpopo Mining Investment Conference.

He had commitments.

“Prior commitments which are family-related”, but he “also believed that the government delegation at the time was sufficient.”

This, according to his spokesperson, is why Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe could not attend the meeting between representatives of the world’s richest countries who came to South Africa seeking a deal that would incentivise keeping the country’s coal in the ground.

Mantashe did, however, seemingly have the time available to call for greater investment in coal and “clean coal” technology in South Africa at roughly the same time.

An article in Business Maverick reports that South African Cabinet ministers met with climate envoys from the US, UK, France and Germany and the European Union on Tuesday to explore opportunities to finance and support South Africa in its plans to accelerate its decarbonisation agenda and green energy ambitions.

The climate envoys were led by UK COP26 envoy John Murton and John Morton, climate counsellor to the US Treasury Secretary. The South African delegation included Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Barbara Creecy; Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel; Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan; Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo; and Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Alvin Botes. Also present were officials from the Presidency and the Treasury Director-General Dondo Mogajane.



A statement from the environment department released after the meeting said: “We recognise the consequences of climate change will be catastrophic for the world, and for South Africa in particular, without global ambitious action to reduce emissions, and address adaptation. The latest science makes it clear that in order to prevent these catastrophic consequences, an accelerated shift to a low-emissions society is required.”

The statement continued: “As the largest carbon emitter on the African continent, South Africa is particularly well positioned to be the preferred partner for concessional climate (or ‘green’) funding to accelerate the decarbonisation of its economy.”

The meeting took place between 3pm and 5pm on Tuesday, according to department spokesperson Albi Modise.

Notably absent from the meeting, however, was Mantashe. Nor was any other representative of the Department of Mineral Resources (DMRE) there. Around the time of the climate finance meeting, Mantashe’s verified Twitter account was posting videos of the minister addressing delegates at the Limpopo Mining Investment Conference.



Daily Maverick reported that last week activists and mining-affected communities and organisations combating the climate crisis chained themselves to the gates of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy in Tshwane, demanding the implementation of policies on renewable energy and for Mantashe’s resignation.

Alex Lenferna, secretary of the Climate Justice Coalition, said at the protest: “Eskom has a plan on the table to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. And they’re trying to secure international climate finance. And that’s one of the only ways that Eskom can save itself from the mess it’s in and move forward towards renewable energy. And Mantashe, the DMRE, are the only ones standing opposed to it.”

As part of the #UprootTheDMRE campaign, the activists and protestors wanted the minister to come out and receive their memorandum. He didn’t because he was absent.

Asked why the DMRE was entirely absent from this week’s climate finance meeting, the minister’s media liaison officer, Nathi Shabangu, said: “You will remember that government does not work in silos. Ministers are part of one cabinet and when the delegation that is being mentioned was part of the meeting so government was represented holistically.”

He continued that “the ministers themselves would have engaged on the issues prior the meeting and they would have had an agreement on how to take the meeting forward, so that’s why we say he did believe that the government delegation was sufficient to put the interests of the country forward and the interests of the continent and the world at large.”



Interests of the country and world at large indeed.

An updated model of limits to fossil fuel extraction, published as an article in the journal Nature, found that “nearly 90% of economically viable global coal reserves must be left in the ground to have even a 50% chance of hitting internationally agreed climate-change goals”.

“For a 50% chance of remaining below 1.5°C of global warming – the more aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris agreement – the world must not emit more than 580 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide before 2100”, and “89% of coal reserves, 58% of oil reserves and 59% of gas reserves must remain unextracted.”

Yet, while the government met the G4 and EU climate envoys, senior officials in the DMRE encouraged greater investment in coal until the “viability” of the alternatives to the fossil fuel are ascertained.



Asked whether the words of an energy and mining minister extolling the virtue of coal use in South Africa, while simultaneously agreeing with his government’s coal-reduction plan in absentia, could reasonably be interpreted as being duplicitous, Shabangu said: “Let’s take it from here, there’s a commitment from the department and government as a whole to move from high carbon emissions to low carbon emissions, and how we do that is to increase investments into cleaner technologies and we are guided by the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).”

“What government has taken is we need to also invest and look at cleaner coal technologies, the CCUS [carbon capture, utilisation and storage] coal, and so we are trying to experiment with that hence the 1,500mw that is in the IRP,” Shabangu told Daily Maverick.

According to Bloomberg, Mantashe, in his closing address at the mining conference, said: “When we talk of carbon capture, storage and use, maybe it’s expensive… Renewable energy was expensive, we invested and brought that into the economy and the price is coming down – we must be prepared to invest in cleaner coal technology.”

A report by Dr Ranajit Sahu, released in July 2021 and titled “Comments on Potential Impacts of Proposed New Coal Generation Under the South Africa 2019 Integrated Resource Plan”, assesses the most likely feasible timelines, high-efficiency, low-emission (HELE) technologies and potential air emissions of new coal generation.

The Centre for Environmental Rights notes that, among other things, the report found that “there is no such thing as clean coal, regardless of whether HELE technologies are used to minimise air emissions from coal (or gas derived from coal)”, and that “given the type, cost and feasibility of existing HELE and carbon capture technologies available in South Africa, it is unrealistic to assume that HELE and carbon capture technologies can adequately mitigate the potential environmental and climate impacts of the proposed new coal capacity”.

“We ought to work on what is stipulated in the IRP,” said Shabangu, explaining that “there’s no contestation… because we’ve agreed in the IRP also that there is quite a sufficient amount of megawatts from old coal-fired power stations will be decommissioned so that is in the IRP. So we’re not talking in two folds, our intention and what the minister is saying he has always maintained, is we need to ensure that in whatever we do, we don’t disrupt energy supply to society.

“We must ensure that we have secured energy supply and in doing so we shouldn’t expect that we can just switch off our coal-fired power stations today and hope to have electricity the next day. Our just transition would need to be systematic in the manner that we secure energy supply. So there’s no contestation on moving from high carbon emissions to low carbon emissions, that is agreed and that is part of government policy.”

Coal hard fact

Dr Jonathan Pershing, US Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, said in a media briefing that Africa should not follow in the high carbon-intensive ways of the West, but look to new technologies.

He noted concern about this shift being expensive, but stressed that the opposite was true.

An analysis by BloombergNEF shows that it is cheaper to build a large solar farm than it is to maintain a coal-fired power plant.

“Among the lowest prices anywhere for renewable power are in countries in Africa, building on capacity we didn’t even have a decade ago,” Pershing said.

He cited the Namibia-Botswana mega solar project, which he said could be the world’s largest, with the world’s lowest electricity cost. It could provide the countries with 5 gigawatts of energy. Embattled Eskom supplies these countries with power. Added solar energy could reduce electricity demand that the country is struggling to meet, while increasing diversity in the utility’s energy mix.

South Africa, the envoy said, could also tackle its unemployment problem with alternative technologies – from hydrogen to electric cars and renewable energy, which could create jobs for “literally thousands and thousands of people”. OBP/DM

[Lisbeth]

An international mining summit in SA and the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy is not present It is scandalous! He is elsewhere talking about "clean" coal

“there is no such thing as clean coal"

I certainly hope that tough measures will be taken against him. In times like these, with the world at the limit of a general collapse, you cannot have a minister who defends the coal mining I'll bet that he has a whole lot of interests in coal mines

SA cannot permit itself to keep him as a minister of mineral resources. He must be sacked!