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   SA faces up to global warming
   
   19 August 2005
   
   South Africa is taking part in the Greenland Dialogue, a week-long ministerial meeting to discuss the Kyoto Protocol and climate change.
   
   Hosted by the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the meeting includes representatives from 25 developed and developing countries, including France, Sweden, China, Brazil and Germany. South Africa's representative is Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
   
   The Greenland Dialogue aims to increase international understanding of the challenges in future international climate policies.
   
   While there, Van Schalkwyk visited the Ilulissat Ice Fjord World Heritage Site and the Greenland ice cap to observe the decline in the extent of sea ice in the North Pole - a result of global warming.
   
   "Our experiences in Greenland have dramatically demonstrated the effects of the unprecedented rise in arctic temperatures," he said.
   
   "The melting of the arctic glaciers, the retreat of the ice cap and the global rise in sea levels is clearly a cause for major international concern."
   
   Climate change is one of the most important global challenges facing the international community, he said. It is a threat to all nations, and requires a coordinated, determined and united response.
   
   One of the main aims of the meeting is to discuss ways of making the Kyoto Protocol more effective, to successfully tackle global warming.
   
   The protocol calls for most of the developed world to make significant reductions in carbon emissions by 2012.
   
   The Greenland Dialogue comes after discussions on climate change at the G8 meeting in Gleneagles in July, and anticipates the follow-up meeting of the G8 to be held in London in November.
   
   Van Schalkwyk will attend that meeting as part of the build-up to the first international gathering of parties under the Kyoto Protocol, be held in Montreal in December.
   
   Climate change in South Africa
   South Africa is holding its own regional initiatives: a climate change conference of African scientists is currently under way in Gauteng, and a National Consultative Conference in October is to examine the policy implications of climate change.
   
   At the Greenland Dialogue, Van Schalkwyk said there was clear evidence of climate change in South Africa - which would continue even if greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised. He said global warming was a threat to the country's sustainable development.
   
   Expanded desertification in semi-arid areas is already a feature of the South African landscape, he said. There is also a demonstrated dieback of desert plants, such as the kokerboom, in the Northern Cape and southern Namibia.
   
   In wetter areas in eastern South Africa there is a marked increase in the density of thickets, such as thorn trees.
   
   "Bush encroachment into productive grasslands in summer rainfall regions has implications for agricultural activities such as cattle and sheep ranching, wildlife management and other ecosystem services," he said.
   
   Climate change could make Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and even Gauteng malaria zones by 2050 if no control measures are implemented.
   
   "The number of South Africans at high malaria risk may quadruple by 2020 - at an added cost to the country of between 0.1% and 0.2% of GDP," Van Schalkwyk said
   
   Global warming models suggest a reduction of the area covered by the current biomes in South Africa by 35% to 55% in the next 50 years.
   
   In a hotter and drier climate maize production would decrease by up to 20%, mostly in the drier western regions of the country. Marginal areas of maize production might well fail, especially for resource-poor farmers unable to adapt rapidly.
   
   "South Africa's vulnerability to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including the costs of mitigation and adaptation, the potential loss of markets, and the consequent impact on sustainable development and poverty alleviation underline the need to create a balance between adaptation, mitigation and managing the socioeconomic impacts of climate change response measures," Van Schalkwyk said.

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