Department of Environmental Affairs say SA under pressure to ensure agreement of the Kyoto Protocol when hosting UN conference.
THE government is under considerable pressure to ensure agreement on the future of the Kyoto Protocol when it hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban in December, the Department of Environmental Affairs’ Lindiwe Chauke said yesterday.
The protocol, adopted in 1997, started international collaboration on the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere . There is uncertainty in the global carbon market over what happens after the protocol’s first commitment period comes to an end on December 31 2012.
"There’s a chance for us to get a decision in SA (at the Durban talks) and there is lots of pressure on us.
"We don’t need a gap between the first and the second (Kyoto Protocol commitment) period," Ms Chauke said at the Carbon Markets & Carbon Finance Africa conference in Sandton.
The carbon market provides a platform to raise funds for infrastructure development that meets human needs with the least possible negative effect on the environment.
Africa, home to only 2% of the world’s 2770 or more clean development mechanism (CDM) projects, had enormous growth potential, said David Abbass, spokesman for sustainable development mechanisms at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
A CDM is a market mechanism that provides economic incentives for achieving emissions reductions by assigning saleable credits to carbon-offset projects such as the Kuyasa project in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The project involves the retrofitting of solar water heaters, insulated ceilings and energy efficient lighting in more than 2300 low-cost homes.
CDM trade last year saw the movement of 24bn, Mr Abbass said. Despite the uncertainty about carbon markets’ post-2012 future, carbon price projections to the end of that year were "fairly bullish", said Lenny Hochschild, MD of Evolution Markets, a leading global emissions brokerage firm.
SA had 18 registered CDM projects and was "fertile ground" for growth, because there was growing investor interest in carbon markets Africa due to the financial uncertainty in Europe. This had sparked an apparent preference for investment in less-developed regions .
SA had 191 CDM projects "in the pipeline" and was "battling" to have them validated, with the validation process taking up to two years, said Ms Chauke.
The long time it took to have a project validated was a common complaint at the conference.
Under the Kyoto Protocol 37 countries, mostly industrialised, committed themselves to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5,2% from the 1990 level, others made general commitments. SA was under no obligations to reduce its emissions, but in 2009 voluntarily announced it would act to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025 from "business as usual" and subject to adequate financial and other support.
