South Africa government has to make a clean break with past

The South African Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk recently described his government's new plan to mitigate climate change as “progressive, ambitious and far-reaching”.

The approach speaks of a scenario in which action taken now will see greenhouse gas emissions peaking by 2020-25, then reaching a plateau for a decade, and finally declining by 2050, with the aim of limiting temperature increases below two degrees, and is reportedly the result of two years of work by Van Schalkwyk’s department. International cognizance is implicit, with negotiators hammering out a deal for the second commitment phase of carbon emission reductions from 2012-2050. The move is seen as setting the pace for those in the developed world, especially those most reluctant to get on board, such as Kyoto Protocol non-signatories US and Japan, and is expected to garner widespread recognition of goodwill and progress in negotiations.

But beyond the rhetoric and international punting, we need to consider how SA aims practically to achieve these ambitious targets. More pertinently, does the government plan to make a radical shift from producing cheap, dirty energy (from coal), which has made SA one of the world’s top 20 worst polluters ?

For starters, the national Energy Security Master Plan 2007-2025 makes it quite clear the status quo will not be changing in the near future. “SA is … the lowest-cost producer of electricity in the world, a position we would like to retain for strategic reasons. The supply interruption … is something that is not desirable.”

This document was released before we experienced dramatic nationwide rolling power cuts — dubbed the “energy crisis” — earlier this year. Since then, and in the scramble to fix the mess, three new coal-fired power stations were approved and old ones brought back into commission. The current capital expenditure build plan is pegged at R343bn over the next five years and is set to increase by more than R1,3-trillion in the long term. This is still very much business as usual, with huge increase in capacity of fossil fuel plants (coal-fired power). But Van Schalkwyk argues that in the new plan there will be no new coal-fired power stations. In theory, of course, he is spot on, but only because we already have energy needs met with the aforementioned stations already approved.

Let’s review the second coal proposal. The government says that if new coal-fired power stations are to be approved now, the initiators of proposals will need to show willingness to employ the technology, albeit still in development, of carbon capture and storage, which aims to clean up the dirty manufacturing process by capturing emissions and storing them under the earth’s surface to prevent air pollution.

The potential saving to the atmosphere will be calculated in carbon credits, which have a monetary value and can be sold under the system of carbon trading between countries, already in place under the auspices of the Kyoto Protocol. Once again, the Energy Security Master Plan 2007–2025 provides some insight into the issues: “Few other economically viable options are available (because Eskom is dominated by coal) and because of this, it is critical to take climate change issues into account and take advantage of carbon credits that translate into direct financial benefits. Carbon credits will be included in the decision making in all future investment decisions.”

There are two issues to consider here. First, carbon trading creates a flexible, market mechanism that has achieved little to no gain for the climate so far. Furthermore, the offset schemes implemented in the global south have caused significant problems for local communities, worsening precarious socioeconomic situations that were not fully integrated into the planning process.

Second, if we are really serious about achieving targets, we should certainly not be extracting coal from the ground as part of future planning. As a nonrenewable resource, the extraction of coal will only disrupt the carbon cycle even further and cause more climate damage . Perhaps we may conclude here that the lure of investments through continued provision of cheap electricity and carbon trading has corralled our thinking in a way that may make it impossible to realise our ambitions.

Nuclear energy is also seen as a vital component of SA’s energy planning. “As government we strongly believe in the potential of nuclear (energy) to be part of the solution,” Van Schalkwyk argues, as it is considered in the renewable energy range of options.

In line with this thinking, the cabinet approved a controversial nuclear energy policy in June, causing a furore because of the lack of consultation in the process. Vast amounts of money are thus being spent on nuclear technology, including, most controversially, the Pebble Bed Molecular Reactor (PBMR), which the government admits is 10 years late, whose design is still not finalised, is 800% over budget, and that has no acceptable solution for nuclear waste disposal. Spending on the nuclear option is almost half of the projected spending to achieve universal access to electricity, which is a major challenge in SA and the region. Also , there is limited prospect of returns, with SA having to spend R25bn on the PBMR before it becomes economically viable. Worldwide, electricity demand is predicted to grow by 85% by 2030 and it is argued that nuclear power would have to almost double its capacity just to maintain its current share of the energy mix.

Anti-nuke campaigns have long since protested against the nuclear option because of its damage to the environment from radiation emissions, which are also a human health hazard. Uranium mining contaminates the air, water and earth with radioactive chemicals and heavy metals that can never be properly cleaned up.

Commentators have argued that mining is also associated with poisonous process chemicals, heavy metals and the use of large quantities of water. In the short term, they say, uranium mine sites wreck the ecology of the local region. In the long term, they pose a risk to a much broader area. Job creation is also limited to small groups of highly skilled people and thus does not favour the needs of developing nations with high unemployment rates.

Meanwhile, more reasonable renewable energy options, including eco-friendly wind energy and solar power, are still being “explored”, according to Eskom. Mere lip service has been paid to the White Paper on Renewable Energy, though it has been in place since 2003. If we seek a major transition from an energy-intensive to a low-carbon economy , we would need to completely replace fossil fuels by 2050, and we would have to dramatically alter modern consumption patterns and lifestyles to be more climate-friendly.

Contrary to official verbiage, existing policy would not meet promises to curb climate change. Vigilant, sustained monitoring by all sectors now needs to take place, regulation need to be tightened and policies changed. We must be able to locally determine the cost of various options to the climate; the true effect of coal and nuclear power to human health and the environment; and the development implications in terms of jobs and livelihoods. This is the only way we can speak with conviction to the rest of Africa and the world.

Trusha Reddy is a researcher in the Institute for Security Studies’ corruption and governance programme.

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