It’s now certain that 2024, which delivered intense heat-waves, the warmest consecutive days globally and catastrophic storms, will also be the hottest year on record – according to projections by Copernicus. Global average temperatures for 2024 are on track to end up more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which would make it the first calendar year to breach this mark. These high temperatures are mainly down to human-caused climate change and the trend is likely to bring South Africans their hottest summer yet, leading to droughts and flooding.
Amid this backdrop of atmospheric swelter, food-awareness organisation ProVeg International will be hosting talks with key policymakers involved in agriculture and climate adaptation negotiations at the Action on Food Hub Pavilion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference [COP29] happening this week in Baku, Azerbaijan. ProVeg and other speakers will share their views on challenges and opportunities for advancing more resilient agricultural practices. This will offer a view into the ongoing efforts shaping the future of sustainable food systems and adaptation policies, particularly in light of the Emirates Declaration on Food and Agriculture, signed by 159 countries at COP28.
During early November Prince William arrived in South Africa from the United Kingdom to bring to Africa his mission to combat the world’s environmental challenges. The visit took place to showcase his prestigious Earthshot Prize, aimed at finding innovative solutions to climate issues, which led up to a star-studded awards gala at the Cape Town Stadium. Despite contributing the least to global warming, Africa is the most vulnerable continent to the impacts of a changing climate. Mindful of this peril ProVeg South Africa highlighted a critical exclusion in nominations for Earthshot award candidates in that the focus for acknowledgement was on projects involving energy, transportation, infrastructure, materials manufacturing, petrochemical replacements, recycling and waste management – demonstrating little cognizance of the glut of issues around the food system.
Animal agriculture and the value chain of animal products is a high-output producer of potent greenhouse gas emissions, which by itself eats up almost the entire United Nations Sustainable Development carbon emissions budget per annum. Furthermore the Earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction as a result of human activity, largely based on consumption habits, with our present agricultural system being the biggest driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss.
In a stark narrative shift away from Royal environmental soirées; the awards ceremony on Wednesday November 6th came under the smog of geopolitics and the media barrage of the re-election of Donald Trump in America, and the ‘red avalanche’ of rearrangements in Congress. This shock-return to the Oval Office threatens to worsen global climate change by altering the orientation toward greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s wealthiest country, eroding their nation’s climate research and abdicating America’s leadership role in global climate negotiations.
Climate scientists have now warned that the Paris Agreement’s warming targets are slipping dangerously out of reach, and Trump’s emphasis on drilling for more oil and gas – if paired with rollbacks of emissions-limiting regulations – could lead to significantly more greenhouse gas emissions in the United States: the country which also has the highest global per capita meat consumption at an average of around 120 kilograms of meat per person per year.
The Republican candidate-elect has a long record of threatening scientists’ independence, including at the Environmental Protection Agency and weather and climate-related agencies, and his previous administration notoriously attempted to insert flagrant climate-deniers into public office. With America now almost guaranteed to abandon its captaincy and initiatives on climate reforms over the next four years; COP29 ironically punctuates the beginning of an era of tribulation and a re-drawing of international strategies to address climate change and its dangers – in which developing countries such as South Africa and particularly other BRICS partners will play a key role as they are collectively responsible for a large tranche of the world’s carbon emissions.
The BRICS group of emerging economies emitted a record 1.98 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from power generation alone during the first quarter of 2024, data from energy think-tank Ember showed. In 2018 the [then five] BRICS countries accounted for 42% of global greenhouse gas emissions. China was the world’s first-ranked emitter with 28% of the global total, with the United States a distant second at 15%. South Africa stood at 13th globally and as the second highest carbon emission per capita emitter in the BRICS group. Now more than ever the impact and obligation of BRICS members will be at its all-time apogee to sustainably reduce their own emissions in order to compensate for a lack of environmental priority by the star-spangled superpower.
At the conclusion of July 2024 President Cyril Ramaphosa signed South Africa’s new Climate Change Bill into law, coincidentally one day after the hottest average two consecutive days on Earth ever recorded. The Act sets out the legal mandate for a nationwide response to align policy with limits on greenhouse gas emissions, including the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The new regulation is the country’s first comprehensive piece of legislation in this area which constitutes its contribution to the global climate change response, incorporating South Africa’s Paris Agreement targets or nationally determined contributions [NDCs] into law.
