Climate Change: Adaptation & Policy
Background
During 2006 - 2008, South Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism led a national effort to assess the viability of a South African commitment to a low-carbon development trajectory via the Long Term Mitigation Scenario process. Mitigation in this context refers to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
This Cabinet approved process will set our country on a path towards peak greenhouse gas emissions by the period 2020-2025. This should be followed by a plateau in emissions and a decline by 30-40% below 2003 levels, by 2050 (ultimately a 60-80% decline by 2100).
Under the Copenhagen Accord in December 2009, South Africa committed to potential mitigation actions leading to a 34% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to "Business As Usual" by 2020, and 42% reduction by 2025.
If these ambitious mitigation efforts are matched by both the developing and developed countries of the world, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) informs us that there is an even chance of avoiding warming the globe by 2°C above the long term pre-industrial global average temperature. But there are still no guarantees that we will achieve these ambitious targets, and even if we do, the threats to biodiversity loss will not be eliminated. Mitigation efforts need to be matched by adaptation efforts that will allow us to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change.
CCBA's contribution
Together with other climate change-focused scientists in South Africa, our group provides significant data and policy guidance to inform and support pivotal Cabinet aspirations that strive towards a low carbon economy. At the same time, our work is important in developing the concepts and practical approaches to adaptation strategies for climate change. This applies not only for local authority and national planning, but also in the international forums of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Our traditional focus on climate change impacts and vulnerability is therefore expanding in order to better understand biodiversity conservation adaptation measures. We aim to give robust policy recommendations in this area.
In the policy arena, CCBA staff have served in lead roles in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and South Africa's National Climate Change Committee (NCCC). They also coordinate and contribute to numerous national and regional policy documents.
Members of the CCBA team have led the process of producing South Africa's Second National Communication (SNC), which is a report to the Conference of the Parties (COP) on strategies dealing with mitigation and adaptation to climate change, the status of the country's greenhouse gas inventory, and any other information relevant to the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Department of Environmental Affairs has announced that the draft SNC has been published and is available for public comment.
Downloads and links
Click on the following for more information or download:
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Official website of the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun COP 16 / CMP 6, 29 November to 10 December 2010
- Durban to host the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2011
- RealClimate: Climate science from climate scientists a resource website for background on climate change science and topics
- Climate Signals: An inventory of climate change impact reports
- Sceptical Science: Getting Skeptical about global warming skepticism
- Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says
- Climate Signals: An inventory of climate change impact reports
- IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Chapter 4 on Ecosystems and Biodiversity (2007)
- South African Country Study on Climate Change (2000)
- Status Quo Report on Climate Change in the Western Cape (2006)
- Assessment of Potential Climate Change Impacts on Namibia's Floristic Diversity, Ecosystem Structure and Function (2005)
- UNFCCC Nairobi Program of Work on Adaptation
- WeAdapt
- Africagate is no scandal say IPCC authors
- The Fake Scandal of Climategate