Category: Daily Maverick

Daily Maverick, 6 December 2012

On the sidelines of the diplomatic wrangling at the COP17 in Durban this week, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has unveiled a fascinating initiative to build as many as 20 “environmental zero impact” schools in the Gaza Strip.

If the future environmental health of the world is left to the dithering politicians at COP17 in Durban, then preparations for the worst case scenario must soon begin. As it currently stands, the prospect of an overcrowded planet gripped by extreme weather conditions, food insecurity and incessant conflict appears greater than a commitment from politicians to actually make the world a better place.

Ugo Bot from the UNRWA pointed out to iMaverick on Monday that in the Gaza strip the world already has a living example of a bleak future. “Gaza is a prototype of a bad future for the world,” he said.  Just 40km long and 10km wide, Gaza is home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians. In some parts, the population density is nearly 20,000 people per square mile. Over one-half of Gaza’s residents are children, brought up among high levels of poverty, deprivation and unemployment. Altogether the UNRWA is the principle provider of basic services – education, health, relief and social services – to five million registered Palestine refugees in the Middle East and 1.1 million registered refugees in the Gaza strip.

Notably, UNRWA runs 243 schools with 219,000 pupils in Gaza. An ambitious plan from the UNRWA in partnership with Mario Cucinella Architects with financial support from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development through the Islamic Development Bank, seeks to build a green future for Palestinian schoolchildren in the Gaza strip.

UNRWA have unveiled a project that will see the first of a number of “environmentally friendly” schools built in Gaza. Bot said the idea for the school was developed taking into account the current economic and social conditions in the Palestinian territories where water shortages, low comfort levels and an exorbitant price of energy dog daily life. The “green” school project explores the construction of a self-sufficient building that produces all the energy it needs with local, renewable resources through solar and ground energy and tap into readily available resources instead of relying on waterworks and energy grids.

Architect Mario Cucinella who has also designed neutral schools for United Nations projects in North Africa said the building would rely more on ancient wisdom than technological advancement to achieve its carbon neutral status. Cucinella explains the construction is composed of three distinct elements. A rock bed beneath a concrete slab at the foundation of the building will act as a bioclimatic moderator, releasing air into the building. The second distinctive component of the building are pre-fabricated concrete pillars that will be used as ducts for natural ventilation and lastly an overhanging ventilated roof combine to form a building with zero CO2 emissions.

A carbon neutral design as the Gaza school is labelled is a subset of sustainable design. Of course, the issue of carbon in construction is more complex than slapping a solar panel on a tin roof.

A holistic carbon neutral design looks to reduce the carbon emissions associated with all aspects of the project, including the operating energy as well as the construction and materials, and additionally the carbon associated with the commercial, institutional or residential use of the building by the occupants.

At a cost of US$ 2 million, roughly the same cost of other UNRWA schools, the new green school provides educational facilities for 800 students. While promoting high academic standards within, this concept also promotes high levels of respect for the environment outside, as it is entirely “off grid” and self sustaining.

For a number of years, Israel has restricted entry and exit from Gaza, but it intensified its blockade in June 2007, when Hamas took over. The aim of the blockade has been to isolate Hamas and to pressure it to stop militant rocket fire. Only basic humanitarian items are freely allowed into Gaza while the flow of natural gas and the supply of construction materials is restricted. Bot explained that the blockade on Gaza would not affect construction of the new “green” school as UNRWA negotiates with Israeli officials for permission to import construction materials into the Gaza strip on a case by case basis.

While world leaders continue to debate how exactly a dramatic reduction of carbon emissions will be achieved, the unveiling of the Gaza school project has revealed a window into the future of construction and design. DM

Daily Maverick, 5 December 2011-

As the second week of negotiations at the UN climate change conference in Durban begins, the European Union claims support is growing for a new legally-binding agreement to cut carbon emissions. While opposition from the US, India and China continues to hold, the EU is itself reluctant to be bound to a second commitment period. 

Negotiations in Durban have so far centred around the possibility of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. The defining feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 39 developed countries to bring about an average 5.2% cut in greenhouse emissions by 2012 relative to their 1990 levels.

The emission cuts required vary from country to country. The EU, for example, which accounts for roughly 21% of current global emissions, must reduce its emissions by 8%, while Russia, which accounts for 17% of global emissions, is permitted to emit the same amount in 2012 as it did in 1990. According to the United Nations, the Kyoto Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.

In Durban, the European Union has offered to consider a second commitment period – beginning in 2012 and ending in 2020.  Sources however indicate that EU is dithering on making a political declaration of assurance to a second commitment period without a ratification process.

The EU already faces internal political challenges in achieving consensus to further increase their Copenhagen pledges and also face grave difficulty in according specific targets to their 27 member states in an equitable fashion.

Instead of a second commitment period on the Kyoto Protocol, the EU has sought a roadmap in Durban that will require negotiations on a future global climate change governance apparatus beginning in 2012. The EU roadmap also stipulates that a future climate change regime must be a legally binding regime that replaces the Kyoto Protocol after 2020. Significantly, the EU roadmap also proposes that all major economies, including South Africa, Brazil, India, China and the US, all be subject to legally binding emissions targets.

South Africa’s environment minister Edna Molewa indicated last week that the EU roadmap was seen favourably in the South African camp. “The EU roadmap is a good road map,” she said, adding that all the groups have to deal with “conditionalities” in the roadmap.

Commenting on the EU’s proposed roadmap, US deputy climate change envoy Jonathan Pershing stressed that it would have to bind all parties equally.

“We’re not looking for a mechanism in which we would have an obligation to reduce emissions of a legal form and the major emerging economies would have a voluntary program,” said Pershing. “That’s kind of the Kyoto structure.  We are not a party to Kyoto, in no small measure, because of that constraint.”

The US has indicated it will not support a legal mandate to cut emissions without knowing the details of such an agreement.

The United States argues that the voluntary emissions reductions that governments agreed to at the last climate conference in Cancun, Mexico are unlikely to change over the coming years, and there is then little hope that the US will reposition itself to join a legally binding second-commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol.

The US has however indicated that should a Durban decision reference a “legally binding” outcome of the negotiation process going forward, they may agree to it if the decision accounts for a changing world order where responsibilities may shift from the developed world to the developing world. The US holds that the nature of the legal obligations between developed and developing countries may be differentiated, in that there may be absolute reduction targets for developed countries and relative action for developing countries, but the legal underpinnings for both developed and developing countries must remain the same.

While Japan, Russia and Canada have all refused to take on a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, India and China have expressed their opposition to the EU roadmap. It is felt that the combination of conditions set by the US and EU are a price the world’s major emerging economies are unable to accept. Non-Annex 1 countries, as the developing world is known, warn that it is particularly difficult to accept the EU roadmap without the guarantee of US participation.

On Saturday, India’s chief negotiator J M Mauskar told a press briefing that no progress on the future of Kyoto Protocol had been made so far. “There has been a reversal of roles with developing countries committing to more actions than the rich countries,” Mauskar said.

He warned that a failure to agree to a second commitment period on the Kyoto Protocol that begins in 2012 would severely undermine confidence in the negotiation process.  “These are legal obligations of the developed world and must be fulfilled at Durban. A decision at Cancun could not be reached on them but Durban must ensure the second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol is established,” he added.

The diplomatic wrangling translates to a situation where the European Union will not sign on to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol until talks on a new global treaty are launched.

“Our objective in these negotiations is not to launch a process for a new climate treaty,” India’s Mauskar said. “This is not what these current negotiations are about.”

In the impasse, it is now proposed that a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol should be postponed to 2015.

With Japan, Russia and Canada refusing to be participate in the Kyoto Protocol in future, it looks set for demise in Durban. Disgruntled members of the developing world believe the EU and the US have conspired to set up a situation where the blame for the floundering negotiations in Durban falls on China and India.

At his last press briefing, Pershing praised Cop17 president and South African minister of international relations and cooperation Maite Nkoana Mashabane for the South African mediation efforts during the conference so far, but added that it was important for the mediation to remain impartial as the urgent, high level negotiations begin on Monday.

The International Energy Agency has warned that the world has about five years left to significantly cut carbon emissions in order to prevent irreversible climate change, but the diplomatic wrangling at such conferences falls victim to the suspicion between the old, established powers of the world and the subversive influence of emerging economies. DM

Daily Maverick, 2 December 2011-

Jimmy Manyi barred journalists from probing the progress of the South African negotiations at a COP17 press conference on Thursday. Instead the minister of energy Dipuo Peters and minister of water and environmental affairs Edna Molewa responded only to questions about government’s energy projects.

Three days after consensus was reached on Doha being the next stop on the UN’s Climate Change road show, or COP18, some are still unimpressed. In hushed voices in the annexes of COP17 in Durban, delegates have been heard, in suspicious British accents, complaining about the choice of Doha as the next COP venue. “Surely it should be held in a place where positive climate change action is taking place,” argues one. The other nods his agreement sanguinely.

As the choice of Qatar for the next round of COP negotiations continues to be debated, so too scrutiny falls on South Africa’s green credentials.

On Thursday minister of water and environmental affairs Edna Molewa readily admitted that, unlike the rest of Africa, South Africa is guilty of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “South Africa is a relatively significant contributor to global climate change with significant GHG emission levels from its energy-intensive, fossil-fuel powered economy,” she said.

Molewa acknowledged that South Africa has both a moral and legal obligation to make a fair contribution to the global effort to mitigate GHG emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. These commitments, Molewa said, “informed the announcement that South Africa will implement mitigation actions that will collectively result in a 34% and a 42% deviation below its ‘Business as Usual’ emissions growth trajectory by 2020 and 2025 respectively.”

Minister of energy Dipuo Peters cautioned that, despite the best intentions of government, South Africa faces the reality of an economy well vested in coal.

“The current reality is that more than 65% of South Africa’s total energy needs are met through coal as the primary energy source. This is followed by crude oil at around 22%, while the remaining 13% of our energy needs are met by gas, nuclear, hydro and renewable energy sources combines.

“Coal therefore plays the dominant role in our supply of energy, especially in the electricity sector where approximately 90% of the country’s electricity is produced in coal-fired power stations, (the country’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions), while nuclear, natural gas; hydro and renewable energy sources make up the remaining 10%,” Peters said.

If the government’s GHG emission targets are ambitious, then the minister of energy also revealed the pragmatism guiding government’s various energy projects.

“We cannot…ignore the fact that we are a coal-rich economy, nor can we ignore the significant contribution of the coal mining industry towards the economy. In 2010 South Africa had an estimated 32 billion tonnes of coal reserves (which at current consumption rates can last us more than 100 years to come) and according to Statistics South Africa, the coal mining sector contributed about 1.8% of GDP directly.”

South Africa, however, is not unique as a developing economy heavily reliant on coal. Last month, the International Energy Agency in its annual World Energy Outlook reported that coal accounted for nearly half of the increase in global energy use over the past decade, with the bulk of the growth coming from the power sector in emerging economies.

Peters stressed however that the government was committed to the development of renewable energy resources to achieve a more sustainable energy mix. “These statistics should not and have not deterred us from acknowledging the other reality of the impact that coal-related emissions have on health, the environment and of course climate change,” Peters said.

The International Energy Agency warns, “New energy efficiency measures make a difference, but much more is required.”

Currently South Africa, in line with the global trend, is shifting towards natural gas. “If we are serious about diversification towards a low carbon economy, we cannot ignore the role that natural gas can play as a bridging option in this transition, because natural gas emits significantly lower greenhouse gases than other fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil,” Peters said.

A recent comprehensive energy report by auditing and consulting firm Deloitte predicts that the world is about to enter a golden age for natural gas. The International Energy Agency explains, “There is much less uncertainty over the outlook for natural gas: factors both on the supply and demand sides point to a bright future.”

Peters also reiterated the South African commitment towards achieving significant mitigation in GHG emissions. “As a country we are committed to playing our part to reducing total emissions and therefore moving towards a low-carbon economy.” The South African stance on mitigation is however contingent on the developed world availing the requisite technology and finance.

“In order to keep a balance between energy security and sustainable development, we realise that moving towards a low carbon economy is not going to be an overnight event. It will be a difficult but deliberate process where we will draw on our own previous experience as well as the experiences of other countries,” Peters said.

Ultimately the International Energy Agency predicts, “The most important contribution to reaching energy security and climate goals comes from the energy that we do not consume.”DM