Climate Change Latest: New council launched in KZN

Citizen involvement will be key to the bottom-up approach to fight the climate change emergency Premier Sihle Zikalala said at the inaugural meeting of the newly formed KwaZulu-Natal Council on Climate Change & Sustainable Development in Durban.

Zikalala, addressing council members, government and business leaders on Wednesday at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), under the theme “Working Together to Achieve Green and Climate Smart Economic Recovery,” said that the council must serve to unite the province to implement “a programme of action that will help save the earth, heal it, and preserve it for future generations”.

“We are still reeling from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is pandemic that has devastated lives and livelihoods on an unimaginable scale. It has left many more despondent and without means to eke out a living,” Zikala said.

The sitting of the new council, which comprises government leaders, scientists and business representatives,  is the realisation of resolutions taken during the KwaZulu-Natal Climate Change & Sustainable Development Summit that was held in Durban in August 2019. The summit had emphasised the importance of a synchronised approach across multi-stakeholders to respond to the impact of climate change. 

“We believe that this council should lead social partners and stakeholders in coordinating activities that are geared towards effective and timeous management of climate change impacts and to ensure sustainable development in the province of KwaZulu-Natal,” Zikalala said.

The council met to agree on the terms of reference for its work and to adopt an implementation plan. 

“Our plans and strategies must have resonance with what is happening internationally, nationally, all the way to the local sphere of government,” Zikalala said.

Zikalala said the provinces envisaged economic recovery must be done with the utmost regard for the wellbeing of the environment. 

“We are clear that in what we term the “new normal”, it can no longer be business as usual. We are therefore in full support of the Africa Climate Policy Centre as well as our national government that post Covid-19, we cannot be seen to be reverting to the pre-Covid era whose hallmark is business at all costs and environmental degradation,” Zikalala said.

“We pray that this Council will be seen as a keen climate activist. It should be the voice that supports carbon-neutral industries in the recovery plans of our province, not just the traditional fossil fuel industries. The climate emergency demands that in all that we do, we must produce, trade, and conduct business and our lives in a manner that protects and nourishes the environment,” Zikalala said.

“Our generation has the historic task of building climate resilient communities, reducing the carbon footprint, deploying environmentally friendly green technologies, and ensuring a just transition to a low carbon and sustainable development trajectory. Part of the just transition means that the support of new, green industries must be accompanied by the development of new skills and the re-skilling of the work force.”

Addressing

Zikalala said he had highlighted that the world currently faces two emergencies – The climate emergency and the Covid-19 emergency when he spoke at Climate Week in New York in September 2020 in his capacity as Co-Chair of the Under 2 Coalition,

“While the developed world is the main culprit whose harmful actions have mostly led to global warming, tragically it is the poor nations and the developing world that remain vulnerable to the threat and the crisis of climate change,” he said.

At the height of the pandemic, on 17 December 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed the Presidential Climate Change Coordinating Commission, a statutory body mandated to coordinate and oversee “the just transition” towards a low-carbon, inclusive, climate change-resilient economy and society. 

“Five months later, as the KwaZulu-Natal government, we are resuscitating this council that was established to enhance climate resilience in the province through a stakeholder dialogue accompanied by sector adaptation and mitigation actions,” he said.

The Council will oversee and provide direction regarding adaptation actions across eight of the province’s most vulnerable sectors.