I am smiling, I am smiling. Hon House Chairperson, the Chairperson of the NCOP, the Deputy Chairperson, hon Minister Creecy, my colleagues from different provinces, ladies and gentlemen. This debate comes at an appropriate and most extremely difficult time in the history of our country and the world. The economies of the world are going through very difficult and challenging times and our country South Africa is not spared from these difficult economic developments.
Some of the contributory factors to these challenging times are the collapse and crumbling of some economies. The political developments in those countries, the threatening diseases and the negative impact of climate change. The sectors of our economy that are vulnerable to climate change are facing collapse, the poor and working class suffer the inevitable consequences of job losses, poverty and malnutrition. Hon Chair, yet despite these difficult conditions we are determined. We are not prepared to succumb and shy away from the task of seeking to change those very difficult conditions in favour of the majority of our people, who are mostly the working class and the poor.
To us, a better life for our people is a non-negotiable objective and we shall strive to achieve it despite the unfavourable conditions that are engulfing our country and the world. One of the greatest philosophers in the history of human kind, Karl Marx once said:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already.
Hon Chair, in 2014 South Africa crafted a bold, a very ambitious and visionary economic plan. This economic plan is Vision 2030 as espoused in the National Development Plan, NDP. The NDP envisages a South Africa that strives to reduce unemployment. It envisages a South Africa that is capable to respond to diseases. It envisages a South Africa that drastically reduces the levels of poverty and a South Africa that can stimulate and grow its economy.
In its preamble the NDP envisages a South Africa that is able to respond to the negative impact of climate change. If I may just borrow a leaf from the NDP, it says:
We acknowledge that each and every one of us is intimately and inextricably of this earth with its beauty and life-giving sources; that our lives on earth are both enriched and complicated by what we have contributed to its condition.
South Africa, our country, is our land. Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation. It is as diverse as we are. We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.
From time to time it reminds us of its enormous, infinite power. When rain and floods overwhelm, winds buffet, seas rage, and the sun beats unrelentingly in drought. In humility, we learn of our limitations. To create living spaces within this beautiful land, is to commensurate with our desired values.
Hon Chair, the above vision statement of the NDP clearly sums up the beauty and richness of our country South Africa and in particular my province, Mpumalanga. We have inherited a South Africa and a province that is endowed with mineral and agricultural produce, a
South Africa and a province that is endowed with rich mineral and capable of sustaining itself and able to feed its people.
As a country and a province, we believe that we have a joint responsibility to protect our gold. We have a joint responsibility to protect our platinum, to protect our coal, to protect our zinc and to protect our iron. We have a joint responsibility to protect our rich agriculture in order to ensure that we continue to create for our people.
We have a responsibility to protect our national parks and our tourism sector, which makes Mpumalanga to be amongst the tourist attraction provinces. We have a responsibility to ensure that our power stations are friendly to the environment. Hon Chair, we believe that we should strive to work together to respond to the urgency to combat climate change, because South Africa and our province Mpumalanga's economy is highly dependent on the income generated from the production, the processing, the export and from the consumption of these mineral resources.
We understand and are alive to the reality that climate change is a threat to sustainable development. Climate change has a negative impact to poverty alleviation. It has a negative impact to food
security. It has a negative impact to water supply. It has a negative impact to energy supply. It has a negative impact to environmental health. It has a negative impact to plant and animal diversity.
Climate change has the capacity to destroy tourism due to the loss of habitants and biodiversity. It has the capacity to lead loss of the forest that produces timber for commercial production. It has the capacity to change the human health. Hon Chair, in order to combat the reality of climate change, we must commit to do the following:
We need to commit to be the ambassadors and pioneers to combat climate change. We need to develop and implement an integrated response to climate change. We need to accept that climate change is a cross cutting issue that demands the integration across departments, across sectors, amongst stakeholders and across countries. We need to develop a strategy which will be consistent with the national priorities that are set out in the different strategies that have been put in place to deal with the issue of climate change.