Agri Kultuur November 2018 | Page 26

These proposed power stations - Thabametsi and Khanyisa - are mired in multiple legal
challenges and will be among the most greenhouse gas emission and water-intensive plants in
the world.
“Locking South Africa into fossil fuel projects with high emissions for well beyond 2030 is short-
sighted and reckless,” says Hugo.
Tasneem Essop, of the National Planning Commission and the Energy Democracy Initiative, says
the IPCC report represents an urgent call to action.
“The implications of this report for South Africa are huge. We’re ... in the top 20 of high-emitting
countries, as well as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This means
that we would have to be more ambitious in our actions to cut emissions and invest much more
in building climate resilience in the country. We need to do this while addressing our triple
challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment.”
Scholes says there is a need for climate leadership “which speaks in one voice across
government
departments” and
between the private
and public sectors and
civil society. “We’re
already seeing some
leading companies
take a progressive
stand. Standard Bank,
for instance, recently
announced that it would
no longer fund coal
projects.”
Happy Khambule,
political adviser at
Greenpeace Africa,
says: “Our government
will unfortunately
not see this report as
important, unless civil
society, business and
labour stress just how
important it is.
“Climate change is a
threat to our survival ...
to peace, security and
social cohesion. We’ve
seen that with the water
shortages in Cape Town
and the Eastern Cape.”
Source:
Saturday Star / 13
October 2018,
10:30am / Sheree
Bega: https://www.
iol.co.za/saturday-
star/climate-change-
apocalypse-17462385
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