South Africa's national climate change dialogues this week yielded a comprehensive picture of the new landscape the country has entered into.

The four days of dialogue covered a vast range of research, programmes and policy actions around South Africa's response to climate change, the scientific base for decision making. Programmes and policies in other parts of Africa were also discussed.

The discussions highlighted the country's state of climate change preparedness, as well as the programming options it is considering and undertaking to address climate change.

Analysis

What was missing at the Climate Change meeting was a sense that it was truly a dialogue. For the most part, it presented as a government showcase, with civil society, labour and business present more as respondents than as equal contributors. This created a sense that there is still a polarised approach to stakeholder engagement in the climate change sector.

There was also poor community level participation, which is perhaps most significant in the resilience and adaptation discussions where grassroots participation is essential to ensure that programmes and projects meet localised needs.

A stakeholders' dialogue to inform South Africa's position at the Lima climate negotiations in December was received positively, although participants considered this only a first step and requested further and more in depth engagement around not only the Lima meetings but also around the commitments the country intends to make in the Paris agreement.

What still remains for an adequate response to climate change in South Africa, according to many participants at the dialogue, is an alignment between mitigation objectives and the country's energy and large infrastructure plans, with a second significant gap being adequate community based engagement around adaptation and development. But the overall message from many is that unless the discussions that have already begun around the massive transformation of social and economic systems are taken into a place of action, climate change will remain an overwhelming threat to human wellbeing.

As Minister Nxesi said in reference to rolling out climate work programmes, "We can do more if we break the cycles. We don't want to hear 10 reasons why it cannot be done, we want to hear 10 reasons why it should be done and how it is going to be done". - Rehana Dada

Despite the confidence this engenders in planning processes, however, the response to climate change is not received well by all.

Climate Change dialogue is considered to be still within a development framework that embodies a fundamental exploitation of human and natural systems.

While recognising that South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP) commits to an equitable transition to a lower carbon and climate resilient economy and society - aligned with the country's National Climate Change Response-, Minister of Public Works, Thulas Nxesi, emphasised that there is no conflict between economic development and redress and the response to climate change.

Nxesi presented the key talk at a session on South Africa's vision for 2030 against the backdrop that the country has committed to peak its emissions at 40 percent of its business as usual trajectory by 2025, plateau, and then start to decline from about 2035.

He introduced government's flagship programmes on climate change, which include work in renewable energy, energy efficiency and demand management, water conservation and demand management, adaptation research and waste management.

A five-year green government project, currently underway, is intended to retrofit about 1,450 buildings with energy efficient installations, about 270 with water saving installations and about 120 with waste management installations.

The programme is expected to include support for local skills development, manufacturing capacity, job creation and technology transfer.

Nxesi also talked about the expansion of the public employment programme to a million by 2015, and two million by 2020.

In addition, the department intends to have a zero carbon building standard by 2030 and include carbon emissions consideration as part of environmental assessment procedures for government infrastructure.

Recently the Department of Environmental Affairs showcased its new green building in the heart of Pretoria.

The building is rated highly for design features such as energy efficiency, solar energy systems, emissions saving transport systems, environmentally friendly materials, and an on-site grey water treatment works.

Urban spaces and human infrastructure are considered significant areas of work for mitigation and resilience to climate change.

Tasneem Essop, a member of the National Planning Commission and International Climate Policy Advocate for WWF, acknowledged that the NDP had to address inequality and poverty at its heart, while dealing with the challenge of managing a just transition to a low carbon economy.

Proactive planning

"One of the important conversations that we need to have is that this transition is going to be complex and will result in winners and losers in the economy. The only way we can manage this transition is to proactively plan for it," she said.

"If we accept the logic that 2ºC is too dangerous for Africa, then we have to accept that we need to have massive transformational change of our economies and our societies."

Essop explained that global agreements on equitably sharing the global carbon space could result in South Africa being a loser.

"If we do not plan proactively and build up from the comparative advantages of being an early mover in transitioning to a low carbon economy, we could find that it will make the transition more costly," she said.

And according to Kwesi Mabasa, representing the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU), "the notion of sustainable development transcends GDP and notions of growth, and places emphasis on preserving the commons.

"It is impossible to separate the debate on climate change from the domestic and international discussion on political economy – from our point of view, the problem is with capitalism, which seeks to exploit nature and labour to profit".

He spoke further about the need to decrease energy poverty, diversify the economy, invest in state driven and state owned technology.

But in spite of calling for the need to balance new technology with employment creation, he placed emphasis on socially owned renewable energy options, arguing that "the current trends in energy do not necessarily create employment".

Joanne Yawitch, chief executive of the National Business Initiative, emphasised that if South Africa is looking to plateau its emissions by 2030, business needs to be making the right decisions now.

"For companies who are looking to buy a new plant or invest in new infrastructure, the timeframe is really 2030, so we need to be cognisant that from this moment we are locking in our 2030 emissions path," she said.