Western Cape Climate Change Strategy & Action Plan

The Western Cape Provincial Government is the first provincial authority on the continent to pioneer a strategy and action plan in response to climate change, says provincial Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning Pierre Uys.

The Western Cape Provincial Strategy and Action Plan was launched today Tuesday 27 January 09) in Milnerton. The main aim of this comprehensive document is to reduce the emission of green house gasses that speed up the effects of global warming, to mitigate the resultant effects and adaptation.

Premier Lynne Brown opened the event where leading climate change experts gave a provincial overview, and Minister Uys unveiled the Western Cape Strategy and Action Plan.

Premier Lynne Brown and her cabinet approved the strategy and action plan in November 2008. The strategy and action plan build on a study to determine the susceptibility of the Western Cape to global warming that will and is already affecting the province, and will be one of the most detrimentally impacted regions of the country.

The Western Cape is leading the way provincially in an area of international interest.

Climate change affects everyone and all individuals need to work to reduce, reuse and recycle in the common good of the region and the planet.

Some of the impacts that exposed the vulnerability of the Western Cape with its vast shoreline are floods in areas like the Overberg and Southern Cape, unusual spells of droughts with drier soils and reduced rainfall, conditions conducive to big wildfires, declining water levels inland, long term rising of sea levels and with extreme or erratic weather conditions. Even the Cape Floral Kingdom came under pressure with fynbos dieback due to heavy rains in the Outeniqua Mountains.

The Western Cape Provincial Government, the public and experts have joined forces with the strategy and action plan to respond efficiently and effectively to the challenges climate change brings and that would impact on wine and other farming, tourism, environmental resources like scarce water and quality air as well as trade across the province.

The Western Cape has already started various initiatives to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, harnessing alternative energy sources that are renewable and sustainable, reducing waste, training teachers to assist the next generations to deal with the new challenges and to recognise opportunities that arise from a change in course.

This government also undertake exemplary action steps such as greening
offices or the workplace for savings, an energy audit with a view to
reduce its usage, putting up moveable ambient air quality monitoring
stations across the province, the roll out of 1 000 solar geysers to
poorer communities and promoting renewable energy.

As a caring and responsive government, the Western Cape plans to play a leading stewardship role.

In this regard legislation may follow to ensure more sustainability, a
green procurement policy, a dedicated climate change unit in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, a desk to deal with a Clean Development Mechanism and intergovernmental relation building to work towards mitigation.

Focus will be on the poor and most vulnerable, partnerships, minimising the adverse impacts, to position the province to take advantage of emerging economic prospects, developing energy efficiency options and practical actions (such as in land use and development planning in constructing energy efficient buildings).

*We all have to change our behaviour, activities and attitudes. I challenge every citizen to take hands with this provincial Government in its target to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels with 15% over about 5 years and increase total consumption from renewable energy sources by 15%. Every one should reduce personal consumption in this regard. We all have to adapt now,* Minister Uys says.

Enquiries:
Cobus Grobler (media officer) 073 133 7299
Minister Uys 082 4555 144

*****************************


THE WESTERN CAPE CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY & ACTION PLAN AT A GLANCE

THE AIM
- to strengthen resilience to climate change, particularly in vulnerable economic sectors and communities
- by reducing the Western Cape*s carbon footprint to maintain the province*s status of having comparatively low greenhouse gas emissions

THE RESPONSE
- Government will lead partnerships with research institutions, industry and communities to minimise the impact of climate change to improve the knowledge of climate change
- Demand side management to control the use of resources (like water as South Africa is already a water scarce country) and utilities (like electricity) and other practical action , including the increased use of naturally available systems like orientating houses to make the best use of sunlight.
- Adaptation measures, including the use of alternative farming methods and development planning
- Mitigation through active reduction of carbon emission, including the use of cleaner fuels and efficient use of energy
- Identification of vulnerable natural and human environments, including water resources, bio-diversity, air quality and built environments at risk, for the most appropriate action

PROVINCIAL PRIORITIES & ACTION AREAS
- An integrated water supply and infrastructure management programme - researching the cost-benefit ration of irrigation, pricing strategies and water conservancy strategies;
- A clear link between land stewardship, livelihoods and economic activity * effective land use and researching the best possible way to strengthen vulnerable communities;
- A focused climate change research and weather information programme;
- A programme to reduced the provincial carbon footprint though energy efficiency (including transport), development of renewable and alternate sustainable energy resources and effective waste management;

SCENARIOS of IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The likely climate change factors are a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures is expected by 2050, the drying up of water sources are likely to dry up with reduced rainfall and reduced soil moisture and an increase of extreme weather like flash floods, droughts and wildfires.

Specifically in the Western Cape, this could lead to:
- Impacts of crops due to higher temperatures and drier soils;
- Higher temperatures or heat waves which will stress the carbon footprint as demand for air-conditioning increases;
- Increased danger to human communities, the Cape*s biodiversity and infrastructure from wildfires;
- Increased sea levels which will heighten the risk of coastal flooding and also the intrusion of salt water into groundwater and wetlands.

You can download the full and summary reports from the departmental web site (see link on the sidebar of this blog) or from the drop at http://drop.io/dflclimatechange using the guest password "1amaguest" NOTE: The first character of the password is the numeral 1 (one)

UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, begins today and will continue until 12 December.


The Official UNFCCC site is here.


There is a Facebook Group specifically for COP 14 - search Facebook Groups for "UN Climate Talks - COP 14"







UNFCCC COP 14 website >>> http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_14/items/4481.php

UNFCCC Video channel >>> http://www.youtube.com/climateconference

Climate Change TV >>>http://www.climate-change.tv/html/interviews.html

A link will be added each day to the IISD Reporting Services Earth Negations Bulletin daily summary for your convenience:

01-12-2008 Day 1;
02-12-2008 Day 2;
03-12-2008 Day 3;
04-12-2008 Day 4;
05-12-2008 Day 5;
06-12-2008 Day 6;
07-12-2008 Day 7;
08-12-2008 Day 8;
09-12-2008 Day 9;
10-12-2008 Day 10;
11-12-2008 Day 11;
12-12-2008 Day 12;

You can also download pdf or html versions of the reports daily here.

Prepare for climate change

Prepare for climate change, Minister urges

Minister Pierre Uys, minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, has launched a special curriculum tool for teachers to assist them in dealing with climate change.

The training of a core group of teachers from across the province on the Climate Change Education and Awareness Programme started today at the Northlink College in Panorama, Cape Town, and will continue until Saturday. The programme and a teacher*s resource book were developed by the University of Cape Town*s Schools Development Unit.


Minister Uys (second from left, second row from front) with Western Cape Teachers that attended the programme

Climate change and environmental issues will form part of the school curriculum from next year and this pilot project by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning were undertaken to help teachers deal with the issues around climate change and awareness.

Minister Uys opened the three day workshop this morning.

"There is overwhelming consensus amongst experts that climate change has been accelerated through human endeavour and that extraordinary preparations are needed to ward off serious consequences. It is for this reason we have decided as Government to train and prepare our people for life style changes to mitigate matters like global warming and dependence on fossil fuel that is a key cause of the emission of greenhouse gasses", Minister Uys said.

"Even with the significant reduction of these gasses, there will still be changes to the climate."

"That this why emissions need to be contained or reduced. It is projected that temperature or extreme weather conditions, water shortages, more fires and adverse agricultural conditions will be some of the challenges we will face in the future. Therefore we start this seeding project in line with national and provincial policies to prepare our future citizens and leaders for the task at hand", Minister Uys said.

Enquiries: Cobus Grobler (media officer) 073 133 7299
Minister Uys 082 4555 144

Climate Change Modeling in South Africa ...

WORLD COMMUNITY GRID TO HELP BUILD MODELS THAT WILL AID IN UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Last week I attended the launch, at UCT, of a most interesting South African Climate Change project.

Now your own PC can be used, while you are not using it, to assist in climate data processing to improve the reliability of climate change modeling for South Africa.

See the "AfricanClimate@Home" link at www.worldcommunitygrid.org

Please read on.

Capetown, South Africa, September 3, 2007 . . . IBM and the Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town (Bruce Hewitson) launched a global computing effort to improve regional climate models in order to make better projections about what effects a changing climate will have in Africa.

Climate change is of grave concern in all areas, but in developing regions such as Africa, the impact will be more acute because of the lack of access to healthcare and other social services. Widespread floods, for example, can lead to water borne illness and related diseases such as dengue fever or malaria, which are spread by infected mosquitoes that thrive in water. Droughts can have devastating effects as well by bringing on pervasive food shortages.

By making better predictions about how global climate change might realistically affect regions of Africa, resource managers can start to make decisions that might alleviate the adverse effects. For example, they could begin planning an irrigation infrastructure or promoting appropriate drought resistant crops. The project, “AfricanClimate@Home,” will use the vast computational power of World Community Grid, a virtual supercomputer comprised of hundreds of thousands of individuals who donate their unused computer time, making it as powerful as one of the world’s top five supercomputers. Researchers will use the computational power of World Community Grid to improve the models used to predict the climate by conducting simulations in small regions of Africa and then checking them against real observations.

While large-scale global climate models provide people with a general idea of what the climate may be like over a wide area, they do not necessarily reflect what will happen in a particular region because the global models do not sufficiently take into account large lakes, mountains, or plains that can affect the local climate.
Lead researcher Dr. Mark Tadross, says, “Making predictions about the climate requires an enormous amount of computational power because of all of the variables, such as temperature, wind, pressure, and humidity. In order to improve the models, we need to come up with better algorithms that will more closely match what is observed in a local area. By using World Community Grid, we have the computational power necessary to run the tests we need to improve our models.”

Once researchers have access to models that more accurately predict regional weather patterns, they can then begin to run forecasts about how global climate changes may affect the region. People can then use the data to make management decisions related to agriculture and water resources. This is important in an area of the world that is still developing and often does not have adequate infrastructure. Forewarning any potentially dramatic changes in climate, especially those related to extreme events such as droughts and floods, can enable vulnerable communities and disaster management teams to act in advance of the climatic hazard.

“We can all have a profound effect on this research by simply by donating our unused computer cycle time,” said Stanley Litow, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM International Foundation. “If you own a computer and can access the Internet, then you can be a part of the solution".

To donate your unused computer time to this project, you can register on www.worldcommunitygrid.org and install a free, small software program on to your computer/s. When computers are idle, for example people are at lunch, their computers request data from World Community Grid’s server. These computers then perform climate modeling computations using this data, and send the results back to the server, prompting it for a new piece of work. A screen saver will tell individuals when their computers are being used.

World Community Grid, the largest public humanitarian grid in existence, has an impressive 315,000-plus members and links more than 700,000 computers. However, it’s estimated that there will be one billion computers worldwide by 2008, underscoring the potential for the grid and its computational power to significantly expand and make an even greater impact on a range of humanitarian issues.

Seven projects have been run on World Community Grid to date, including "FightAIDS@Home", which completed five years of HIV/AIDS research in just six months. Additional projects are in the pipeline.

Contact:
Clint Roswell
IBM
914-499-4045
mailto: roswellc@us.ibm.com

Let's support CSAG and have as many South Africans as possible signing up to the World Community Grid "ClimateChange@Home" project and see if we can lead the world in regional climate modeling.

Dennis Laidler

RECC Presentations

This post gives access to the presentations delivered at the Western Cape Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit

Click on the links below to download the presentations and documents from the Western Cape Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit held at the CTICC, Cape Town 7-8 June 2007

A couple of the links have been removed pending updating of the presentations.

Correlate these presentations with the Summit Programme

DAY 1 - 7 JUNE 2007 - Renewable Energy

Mark Borchers ppt 4.35MB
Ronald Chauke ppt 304KB
Adam Gordon ppt 192KB
Mark Gordon ppt 7.7MB
Daniel Modise ppt 385KB
Raudiyah Sahabodien pps 8.9MB
Brian Sechotlho ppt 2045KB
Nicola Steen ppt 14.11MB
M Visage ppt 771KB
SANERI presentation to RE and CC Summit in CT 070607 ppt 579KB
NERSA Licensing Rules RE Summit 20070607 ppt 175KB
NERSA Regulatory Support RE Summit 20070606 ppt 182KB

Today the National Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, delivered his budget speech

Professor Wikus van Niekerk of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies of the University of Stellenbosch drew delegates attention to a regular discussion forum hosted by the Centre relating to Renewable and Sustainable Energy issues.

Here is the Draft Sustainable Energy Strategy pdf 16.6MB (Note: this is a full colour pdf of the printed document)



Queen Protea, Protea magnifica,
on the slopes of Milner Ridge Peak,
Hex River Mountains

At the end of the day MEC Essop's office issued the following press statement:

MEC Essop commits to bold actions to accelerate Renewable Energy initiatives in the Western Cape

Yesterday in Cape Town delivering the first day closure of the Provincial Government’s Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit, MEC Tasneem Essop acknowledged the contributions, gaps, opportunities and challenges raised by all the stakeholders present.

This summit was held to create an enabling environment to promote dialogue between stakeholders and government in order to activate the renewable energy sector within the Western Cape.

The MEC summarized the day’s proceedings and committed to a range of immediate actions.

Essop offered that her Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning would facilitate a process to understand barriers and constraints to implementing Renewable Energy projects.

The Department will develop a document readily available to provide information to prospective RE developers to explain the regulatory processes involved in implementing Renewable Energy projects. The pamphlet will also include information about incentives and provide specific contact details.

Essop also recognized the urgent need to build smart capacity in government departments, municipalities and other relevant organs of state to efficiently manage Renewable Energy project implementation.

Furthermore, she committed to facilitate the roll-out of the short-term actions identified in the recently finalized Western Cape Sustainable Energy Strategy and establish a Renewable Energy networking forum to regularly debate Renewable Energy issues between all stakeholders including government.

Cognizant of urgent climate change adaptation and mitigation imperatives, Essop announced that she will take the initiative to develop a Renewable Energy Act for the Western Cape in consultation with her national and provincial counterparts.

In conclusion Essop offered to investigate and promote the creation of funding opportunities for small and medium Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency projects, and facilitate skills development programmes within the Renewable Energy sector (such as installation and maintenance of solar water geysers), where there is currently a shortage of such skills.

End

Contact Person:
Suraya Hamdulay
083 555 4150



DAY 2 - 8 JUNE 2007 - Climate Change

There is an earlier post on this blog where you can download draft copies of the Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan and Supplimentary Reports

Belynda Petrie ppt 4.7MB - Presentation on the Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan


FOR YOUR FUTURE REFERENCE THE HOMEPAGE OF THIS
DEPARTMENTAL BLOG IS AT:
http://sustainablehome4all.blogspot.com/

Western Cape Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit

On behalf of my Ministry of Environment, Planning and Economic Development, I would like to extend an invitation to you to participate in the Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit on 7 and 8 June 2007 in Cape Town during World Environment Week hosted by my Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.

The Provincial Government of the Western Cape has set a target of 15% of energy production from renewable sources by 2014. The first day of the summit is mainly a business and renewable energy investment forum and exhibition to stimulate the implementation of renewable energy projects in the province.

The second day of the summit focuses primarily on the Draft Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan. A wide range of national and provincial stakeholders are invited to participate. There will be an address by the honourable Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of the National Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and the Premier of the Western Cape on this vital issue. The climate change segment of the summit addresses the impacts of climate change on the poor and most vulnerable sectors of society.

Your participation in this summit would be most appreciated as we value your input in ensuring that the Western Cape continues along its path of sustainable development.

Register for the Summit online
(Note: the number of delegates is limited so to avoid disappointment please register and do not just pitch up on the day)

Draft Western Cape Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan and Supplimentary Reports

The Draft Western Cape Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan and Supplimentary Reports are now available online on the Western Cape Climate Change Project Website. N.B. THIS WEB SITE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.

HOWEVER THE FINAL Western Cape Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan and Supplimentary Reports ARE NOW AVAILABLE.

There will be ongoing opportunities to engage with the department in finalising the report after the Western Cape Renewable Energy and Climate Change Summit to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 7 and 8 June 2007 - for further information consult this blog regularly. Click on the link to the Sumit above to register online.