GOOD speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
19 May 2022
Note: This is the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s Parliamentary Budget Vote on Mineral Resources & Energy.
The destruction of the earth’s environment by carbon pollution derived from burning fossil fuels can no longer be regarded as science fiction.
There’s an overwhelming body of evidence that even members of the Flat Earth Society can no longer deny.
It is a human-made crisis whose effects are already being felt in increasing radical climatic events, here and across the planet, and in rising sea levels that are already forcing communities in the Southern Pacific to abandon their family homes.
South Africa belches more carbon than any other nation on the continent. We are ranked 14th on the list of the planets largest emitters of greenhouse gases, principally due to our reliance on coal for energy.
But despite Eskom’s best efforts to drive us to distraction, we can’t simply pull the plug on coal. First, we must develop alternatives. Including alternative skills for coal workers and their families, and local coal-dependent economies. This, we call a just transition.
People are quite good at creating crises. They’re also good at developing solutions for crises of their making. But leadership is required to implement the solutions.
We know we must reduce carbon emissions, and have international obligations to do so. At the same time we have developed cleaner technologies to do the job.
A combination of this knowledge, our obligations and the technology at our disposal must inform our priorities as we battle through our parallel Eskom crisis.
The equipment we use to generate electricity is not only filthy and outdated. It has also been failing for the past 15 years.
While its been failing our understanding that we have to transition from fossil-fuel generated power to clean and renewable sources of energy has been growing. It’s no longer futuristic; it’s here. Cabinet has committed to the zero net emission of carbon pollution by 2050.
We have spoken of a just transition from coal to minimize short-term social and economic impacts for years. The world has made Billions of Rands available to support this transition. We must stop talking about it and begin to see some real action.
South Africa was relatively quick off the mark in its initial uptake of solar and wind energy farms, but that momentum has long been stifled by incoherent policy and vision. We must accelerate the introduction of Independent Power Producers. Besides the obvious environmental benefits, there’s the added extra of reducing our dependence on Eskom.
We must embrace innovation and invest in a sustainable future rather than dither and consider investing in questionable short-term powership deals.
Innovation, such as that underpinning the recently announced Kibo Energy deal that will turn plastic waste that cannot be recycled into energy, in Gauteng.
Crispian Olver, the executive director of the Presidential Climate Commission, has said that for our country to meet its 2050 goal will require the deployment of 150GW of Solar and Wind energy by 2050.
To achieve this we must up our production rate of clean energy ten-fold.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Samkelo Mgobozi, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0792315977 (WhatsApp)/0829684021 (calls)
Email: samm@forgood.org.za