Chairperson, our democracy has emerged from a long period of injustice, inequality and discrimination. We know more than most countries what it is like to fight for justice, but there is another battle that now needs to be fought, and that is for climate justice. The climate change challenge that confronts us today, and which at its current trajectory will lead to, most probably, a climatic disaster, is also characterised by the need to simultaneously overcome inequality and discrimination.
Legislators in this Parliament at the end of the 21st century will judge us here today on how successful we were in simultaneously addressing climate change and reducing poverty. While the majority of the focus of the Copenhagen climate negotiations will be on getting the developed countries to commit to ambitious, binding emissions reduction targets, let us not forget that we too have to adapt to climate change and play our role in mitigating it.
It must be noted that 75% to 80% of the costs of the damage from climate change will be carried by the developing world. Climate change will most acutely be felt in Africa, where 95% of agriculture is rainfall dependent. The other likely effects, including the higher incidents and frequency of extreme weather events, will be equally devastating. I trust, therefore, that everyone in this House will take climate change seriously. Whether we like it or not, it is going to force its way high onto the agenda of both government and Parliament.
As Graeme Wheeler, the Managing Director of Operations at the World Bank noted, the financial crisis originated in the developed world and contaminated developing countries, and so too did the concentration of greenhouse gases.
The climate negotiations now under way are particularly complex because they involve at the same time serious equity and moral considerations as well as difficult issues of sequencing and competitiveness.
We are confronted with forging a post 2012-climate deal at the same time as the world is in recession. Public sector debt to gross domestic product, GDP, ratios is on a dangerous path in many countries and politicians in the developed world worry whether mitigation measures will weaken the economic recoveries of their countries. They are also worried about the domestic fiscal impact of large financial transfers to developing countries for the purposes of adaptation.
Investment in transforming the world's energy systems will be substantial if we are to prevent global warming beyond two degrees Celsius. What do we need out of the Copenhagen process this year? We need ambitious quantified emission reduction commitments from developed countries and nationally appropriate actions by developing countries such as South Africa that meet the scale and urgency of the challenge.
We need delivery, at the scale required, of financial and technological support from developed to developing countries, through public finance and market mechanisms, to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and to mitigate emissions in a way that is consistent with development goals.
We need an improved review and enforcement mechanism that will strengthen delivery and allow commitments and actions to be enhanced in response to the latest scientific and socioeconomic information, in accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.
It is important to look at how South Africa is doing in response to the climate change challenge. It is a general belief that our government is performing admirably at the international negotiations. The domestic front is less impressive.
While we, through the long-term mitigation scenarios, have an understanding of what South Africa needs to do to ultimately reduce its own emissions in the period after 2030, how we are going to get there remains unclear. No doubt after the climate negotiations are complete government will begin to table its plans in more detail, but let me sound a warning, and that is, the longer we take to respond to reducing our emissions the more difficult it will become.
The investments we make today- and I am thinking here particularly about the love affair that Eskom has with building new coal power stations - will lock us into a particular emissions trajectory for years and years to come. Therefore, even if we only plan to reduce actual emissions many years from now, we need to make our investments now in a way that allows those reductions to happen later.
There are, however, many initiatives that legislators in this House must drive as soon as possible. We need to insist on higher industrial efficiency standards; we need to strengthen the building of appliance energy standards; we need stricter vehicle fuel standards; and we need to unblock the blockages that are preventing a massive private sector uptake of renewable energy. In this regard, Eskom must be tackled head-on.
Just because Eskom has had a monopoly on producing and distributing electricity in the past we must not accept that this situation should continue into the future. If we want to guarantee our energy security in the future and diversify and decarbonise our energy supply in accordance with what scientists tell us to do, then Eskom is not the solution. How can we trust an entity that has planned so poorly in the past to secure our energy security today, with our energy security in the future?
Cabinet is due to release its integrated resource plan for electricity any day now. There will be significant comments around this document, but we need to look at it critically through the climate change lens. Responding to climate change in the electricity sector will be best achieved by a combination of both public and private sector players.
This House is not yet ready to provide the type of oversight on climate change that is required. Climate change is crosscutting. The response must not only come from individuals and the private sector, but from various government departments, including energy, water and environmental affairs, trade and industry, transport, science and technology, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
There is, in my opinion, therefore a need to create a special climate change committee in the National Assembly. Its members should come from all the critical portfolio committees, and they must be capacitated to understand the science and the economics of the challenge.
As Sir Nicholas Stern has said "inaction is more costly than action". We must confront the climate change challenge. When legislators at the end of the century look back at this Parliament, we should be known as a Parliament that built a foundation for a country that is sustainable, climate proof and prosperous. Thank you. [Applause.]