Hon Chairperson of the NCOP, hon members of the NCOP and the honoured guests, I bring you revolutionary greetings from the people of the Eastern Cape, the home of legends. Thank you for inviting us to this important debate on responding to the urgency to combat the reality of climate change.
This is an important debate for us in the Eastern Cape given the impact the reality of climate change has in communities, particularly those that have inadequate infrastructure to respond to natural disasters. We are also one of the provinces that are dealing with the devastating drought situation as a result of climate change. As stated by the United Nations secretary- general, "Science is telling us that the impacts of climate change are happening now, and faster than we had predicted. This is becoming increasingly evident in our daily lives." We are therefore delighted to see the NCOP taking interest in debating this matter and we hope that we will come of this sitting with a more coherent and co-ordinated approach to combat the impact of climate change.
As the Eastern Cape government, we are committed to achieving the 1,5C bound as the socially, economically, politically and scientifically safe limit to global warming by the end of this
century, and the net zero emissions target by 2050 as the global long-term climate objective for all.
In light of the above, the report by the 2019 Climate Action Summit directed countries to urgently accelerate work to define what this entails for the short-term 2020 and midterm 2030 commitments that will be captured in their nationally determined contributions and ensure the alignment of strategies to meet those commitments.
Hon Chairperson, we must agree that the existing social order has not addressed the challenges faced by societies across the globe. We must agree that the urge for wealth accumulation and profit maximisation driven by greed and at the expense of our environment is not sustainable and is the reason why we are still grappling with the problem of emissions that pollute our environment and lead to the devastating impacts of heavy rains, storms and other related natural disasters.
Hon members, we must agree that we will continue to debate the reality of climate change and struggle to address it unless we work towards achieving a more just, equitable and people centred social order where production is according to need. We need to confront global leaders to ensure that the decisions they take are in the
interest of many generations to come. We need to address the problem of big corporations that continue to destroy our environment to maximise profits at all costs. While a few continue to accumulate wealth through destructive productive activities on our environment, our societies continue to accumulate problems such as natural disasters.
Hon members, during the state of the province address, our Premier, the hon, Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane acknowledged that our province is one of the most disaster prone areas in the country and that's what we witnessed in Raymond Mhlaba Municipality was unfortunate and that our government will continue to offer relief to distressed communities. We must welcome the commitment by the Department of Environmental Affairs to ensure that there are adequate instruments to improve efficiency and effectiveness of environmental impact assessment systems across the country. These will include development of environmental management frameworks where certain areas are identified as critical development areas with increasing development pressures.
We also welcome the department's commitment to initiate the development of regulations to legislate the creation of strategic environmental assessments and the development of a strategic
environmental management framework for energy applications, specifically renewable energy applications. Hon Chairperson, our province agrees with the 2012 Rio+20 Earth Summit outcomes which, amongst others identified the green economy, in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and the institutional framework for sustainable development as part of the strategy for achieving the efforts of climate change mitigation. We also agree with the five strategic objectives identified in the National Strategy for Sustainable Development and Action Plan, NSSD, which are: Enhancing systems for integrated planning and implementation; sustaining our ecosystems and using natural resources efficiently towards a green economy; building sustainable communities; and responding effectively to climate change through various interrelated and enabling interventions that promote sustainable development.
We must invest in infrastructure development, especially in areas in the country that were largely affected by apartheid spatial patterns of development, such as the Eastern Cape, which is largely a rural province, with a significant population living in remote rural areas. We therefore welcome and support the establishment of the infrastructure fund and improved investment in the municipal social
infrastructure, announced by the President as part of the stimulus and recovery plan.
Hon members, as we know that the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, the hon Gwede Mantashe has published the Integrated Resource Plan for implementation. Amongst other things, the plan stresses the importance of pursuing a diversified energy mix and the need for new investments to be made in more efficient coal technologies to comply with climate and environmental requirements. As part of our commitment to use renewable technologies to diversify the electricity mix, produce distributed generation and provide off grid electricity, we will ensure that we support and make full use of the new wind projects that have been developed in the Eastern Cape.
Lastly, as the province, we are committed to providing support to smallholder farmers by, amongst others, building their resilience to climate shocks and stresses. We want small-scale producers to adapt their farming systems, livelihoods and landscapes to be more resilient to climate.
We will work to ensure that small-scale producers have expanded access to insurance, markets, finance, and productive safety nets, and the use of adaptation technologies and agroecological practices.
As the home province of legends, we want to assure you that the Eastern Cape government will support efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change and ensure that we achieve the goal of having more sustainable and environmentally friendly development practises.
Once again, thank you for inviting us to be party to this debate, and we hope that we can all work together to overcome the climate crisis and building a better Africa and a better world. I thank you. [Applause.]