Statement On The Outcomes Of United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change

Statement on the outcomes of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - COP19/CMP9 in Warsaw, Poland.

Statement delivered by Ms Judy Beaumont, Deputy Director General, Climate Change and Air Quality on behalf of Mrs Edna Molewa, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs.

The nineteenth internationa...l climate change Conference of the Parties (COP19) and itsKyoto Protocol (CMP 9) closed late on Saturday, 23 November 2013 in Warsaw, Poland following two weeks of intensive negotiations.

The Warsaw conference addressed a total of 68 agenda items and took 38 decisions (28 under the COP, and 10 under the CMP). In summary there were 4 major outcomes of the conference.

Firstly, were a set of decisions aimed at finalising and enhancing the implementation of the international response to the climate crisis now and up to 2020. This involved the finalisation of accounting rules under Kyoto to enable countries to ratify the amendments and their legally binding emission reduction commitments as agreed in Durban in 2011. After two weeks of detailed technical discussions, Parties were able to agree most of the outstanding accounting rules for the Kyoto second commitment period, and this work will be finalised at the next meeting.

In addition to the finalisation of Kyoto rules, there was critical work required to enhance implementation under the Convention in the pre-2020 period for both developed and developing countries.

A key milestone was reached by finalising the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems for both developing and developed countries. The Warsaw COP adopted the review guidelines for biennial reports (BRs) and national communications in time for the submission of the first Biennial Reports from developed countries in January 2014, as well as, the international consultation & analysis process for developing countries.

Adaptation continued to receive the prominent attention that it deserves under all the Convention bodies with respect to implementation between now and 2020. The most notable outcome on adaptation was the conclusion of the guidelines for developing countries in general to develop National Adaptation Plans. This is a critical outcome for South Africa as these guidelines can now be used to further develop the country’s own National Adaptation Plan, which is currently underway. This put adaptation on a clear path to be in the centre of the legal instrument being negotiated for implementation from 2020 onwards. These negotiations are to be concluded in Paris in 2015.

A major priority to enable enhanced post 2012 and pre-2020 implementation is the question of how to finance climate change efforts. The COP adopted seven decisions on finance. The most critical ones are, a) long term finance, b) arrangements between the COP and the Green Climate Fund (GCF); and c) support to the fundraising strategy and campaign of the Adaptation Fund Board. During the Conference, pledges totalling over US$100 million were made that ensure the continuation of the Adaptation Fund’s support for concrete adaptation projects in developing countries. Meeting this target is a significant step for developing countries as it means work can continue to pilot the Adaptation Fund’s direct access approach to supporting programmes on the ground. In terms of long term finance, developed countries pledged to scale up available finance, based on the levels achieved during the fast-start period upwards of USD10.2-USD15 billion of public finance per year, with the aim of achieving the goal of jointly mobilising USD100 billion per year by 2020.

With the conclusion of the arrangement between the COP and the GCF, the GCF is now well on its way to concluding its accountability relationship with the Convention and is on track to start its initial resource mobilisation process prior to September 2014, when the UN Secretary-General will convene a high level Leaders’ Summit. This is a huge milestone attained under the implementation agenda.

The second major outcome of Warsaw is the progress made in the negotiation of the climate change system to be implemented beyond 2020.

This is to be captured in a new legal instrument for implementation post 2020 and is being negotiated under the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP). Warsaw was able to transition from the exploratory phase of the negotiations to a more formal mode of work. This was achieved by focused discussions on elements for inclusion in the new legal instrument. A decision, highlighting key components of the 2015 outcome was adopted. The ADP is now on its way to producing a negotiation text in time for the 2015 agreement to be reached in Paris. In addition Parties have agreed to start their “homework” - national consultation processes aimed at putting numbers on the table at the Paris 2015 COP.

The third major Warsaw was progress in negotiation of means to scale up ambition in the post 2012 and pre 2020 period.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s 2013 Emission’s Gap Report (on the ‘gap’ between emissions reduction required by 2020 to limit temperature increase to 2 degrees, and emissions reductions pledged by countries at the moment) indicates that developed countries’ overall emissions continue to grow instead of decrease. Even if the current emission reduction pledges are fully implemented, the emission gap in the year 2020 will be 8-12 GtCO2e. This is what makes the decision to accelerate activities under the work-plan on enhancing mitigation ambition up to 2020 extremely important. Parties agreed to identify, implement and scale up actions with high mitigation potential in 2014. This will be done in a coherent manner under the Durban Platform (ADP) workstream II with the objective of closing this 8-12 GtCO2e emissions gap as soon as possible and not later than 2020.

The year 2014 has been billed as the year of ambition for international climate negotiations. Firstly, the Annex I Parties (developed countries) under the Kyoto Protocol will be revisiting their commitments by April. It is not clear whether developed country Parties under the Convention not covered by the Kyoto Protocol will be doing the same. Secondly, the United Nations Secretary General will be convening a High Level Climate Change Summit on 23 September 2014 to provide political momentum to the climate change talks. The Ministers of Environment/Climate Change will also have a high-level dialogue on ambition during the June 2014 UNFCCC intersessional meeting in Bonn. The Ministers will also have another chance to engage during the pre-COP meeting in Venezuela and the 20th COP in Lima, Peru towards the end of 2014.

The fourth major Warsaw outcome was the finalisation of a very contentious negotiation on an international mechanism to deal with loss and damage caused by climate change.

The key priorities for Africa and other developing countries were an outcome on the establishment of a mechanism on loss and damage due to climate change and finance as part of the urgent implementation programme between now and 2020. The most recent science as outlined in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report confirms that the severity of climate change impacts now and into the future poses a number of developmental, economic, social and food security challenges to developing countries. While it will be possible for some countries to adapt to climate change to a certain extent, adaptation will take time, and there will increasingly be extreme climatic events such as the recent super-typhoon which tragically struck the Philippines, to which it is impossible to adapt.

It is on this basis that developing countries have been working towards the establishment of an institutional mechanism to deal with loss and damage resulting from the adverse effects of climate change. In the case of some countries, particularly small island states, losses from climate change will likely be catastrophic, and could involve irreversible damage and the permanent loss of some or of all of their national territory.

I was tasked by the Polish COP President to facilitate negotiations and to find a resolution to this issue of loss and damage. This was a continuation of my role from the Doha Conference last year and I was assisted by Sweden’s Minister of Environment Lena Margareta Ek.

We facilitated three days of challenging negotiations, and concluded with a landmark outcome with the launching of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with climate change impacts. The decision outlines institutional arrangements, functions and modalities of the Mechanism, which aims to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events. The conclusion of negotiations on this mechanism, with clear linkages to other UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) mechanisms, was very important to South Africa’s expressed goal of achieving a high level of integration of UNFCCC mechanisms to tackle various aspects of the climate change problem.

In conclusion, I will briefly reflect on the way forward next year. It is important that next year’s COP in Peru facilitates a political understanding of the shape of the 2015 agreement in advance, so that technical elaboration of that agreement can begin early in 2015. This is the lesson of Copenhagen outcome in 2009 that realised a political agreement which was needed before being translated into a formal and more technical agreement on the post-2012 implementation system in Cancun and Durban. With proper sequencing Parties can keep to the Durban agreement of reaching a new deal during the 2015 Paris COP 21.

Issued by:
The Department of Environmental Affairs

What Lies Beneath

By Dr Ian Whyte

I was only ever chased up a tree by an animal once in my 37 years in the Kruger National Park, by a hippo that had come to graze on the lawn in my garden. Though there is little data to corroborate the reputation hippos have as being the mammal that kills more humans than any other in Africa, and i do wonder heather this reputation is deserved, I wasn’t taking any chances. It may well have been the case when humans and hippos tended to live along-side one another and potential for conflict was far greater. Hippos attacking fish boats, raiding crops or simply grazing around villages are all situations with the potential for fatal consequences to humans. These days I suspect elephants have taken over this role.  Humans and elephant populations are growing rapidly in many parts of the continent and conflict is on the rise. Be as it may, hippos remain dangerous animals capable of inflicting fearsome injuries and have been responsible for many human deaths. In most instances attacks on boats or people on the edge of the water are by mothers with small calves.  You only have to look at their teeth to understand why hippos are so fearsome.  Their huge canine teeth, measuring up to 300 millimetres in the lower jaw and 150 millimetres in the upper, grow continuously. These teeth protrude from the skull in such a way that they wear off against each other, keeping them razor sharp. The jaws open wide enough to encompass a human torso. In a bite from a hippo the upper and lower canines would probably meet inside the body, punching two huge holes right through it, almost certainly a fatal injury. Most field guides will tell you that hippos can stay submerged for up to six minutes, but rangers in the Kruger have recorded times of up to eight minutes. Once alarmed, the animals are wary of exposing themselves and will breath by cautiously allowing only the tip of the nostrils to break the surface of the water. So as not to give their position away, they do this in almost complete silence, compared to the explosive release of air normally heard from relaxed animals in the water. Hippo bulls are very territorial. They maintain a territory, usually consisting of a good pool with sandbanks for sunbathing, for many years. The territory is confined to a stretch of river and its immediate embankments, and does not extend to the grazing areas away from the river. Each territory has its associated females and calves that return to the same pool during the daylight hours. This status quo remains while the bull holds tenure, which he does for as long as he can fend off rivals. Displacement by a younger, more vigorous bull results in a upheaval in which the new contender may kill the calves sired by the previous bull. This behaviour ensures the new bulls genes are passes on into future generations and not those of his predecessor. Fighting is generally ritualised with much posturing and open-jawed displaying of the canines.  But sometimes more serious fights erupt in which males may inflict serious wounds by slashing at each other with their sharp canine teeth. These may last for several hours and are accompanied by weird vocalisations such as squeals, grunts and roars. Such battles can result in the death of one, or sometimes both, of the protagonists. Given their size, hippos have an extraordinarily short gestation period of eight months. Growth of the foetus in the womb is incredibly fast. Black rhinos, which are similar in size to hippos, have a gestation time almost twice as long, yet rhino calf weighs less at birth, about 40 kilograms, compared to a newborn hippo at about 50 kilograms. Calves may be born at any time of the year but the majority are born during the mid-summer, rainy months. When the time comes to give birth, female hippos move away from the herd and remain separated for about a fortnight. The calves are capable of going into deep water and can suckle underwater within minutes of being born. Initially the calf stays in shallow water near a shore while the mother grazes nearby. Growth of the first 10 years of life is also rapid. The average increase in weight is in the order of 100 kilograms a year, so that at 10 years old, a hippo can weigh in excess of 1200 kilograms. Males and females are similar in size, the male being only slightly larger than the female.

Wild magazine summer 2013/2013

Mr George Adamson The Father Of Lions

George Adamson with his female lion Elsa

George Adamson with his lions

George Adamson with his son the lion Christian



 

Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 22)( Page 1 ) The Old Crocodile

We reached the Crocodile River drift on a Sunday morning, after a particularly dry and dusty night trek.  `Wanting a wash' did not on such occasions mean a mild inclination for a luxury: it meant that washing was badly needed.  The dust lay inches deep on the one worn veld road, and the long strings of oxen toiling along kicked up suffocating clouds of fine dust which there was seldom any breeze to carry off: it powdered white man and black to an equal level of yellowy red.  The waggons were a couple of hundred yards from the river; and, taking a complete change, I went off for a real clean up. We generally managed to get in a couple of bathes at the rivers--real swims--but that was only done in the regular drifts and when there were people about or waggons crossing.  In such conditions crocodiles rarely appeared; they prefer solitude and silence.  The swims were very delightful but somewhat different from ordinary bathes; however remote may have been the risk of meeting a crocodile when you dived, or of being grabbed by one as you swam, the idea was always there and made it more interesting. Being alone that day I had no intention of having a swim or of going into the open river, and I took a little trouble to pick a suitable pool with a rock on which to stand and dress.  The water was clear and I could see the bottom of the pool.  It was quite shallow--three feet deep at most--made by a scour in the sandy bed and divided from the main stream by a narrow spit of sand a couple of yards wide and twenty long. At the top end of the sand spit was a flat rock--my dressing table. After a dip in the pool I stood on to the sand spit to scrub off the brown dust, keeping one unsoaped eye roving round for  intrusive crocodiles, and the loaded rifle lying beside me.  The brutes slide out so silently and unexpectedly that in that exposed position, with water all round, one could not afford to turn one's back on any quarter for long.  There is something laughable--it seemed faintly humorous even then--in the idea of a naked man hastily washing soap out of his eyes and squeezing away the water to take a hurried look behind him, and then after careful survey, doing an `altogether' dowse just as hastily-- blowing and spluttering all the time like a boy after his first dive. The bath was successful and ended without incident--not a sign of a crocodile the whole time!  Breakfast was ready when I reached the waggons, and feeling very fit and clean in a fresh flannel shirt and white moleskins, I sat down to it.  Jim Makokel' brought the kettle of coffee from the fire and was in the act of pouring some into a big mug when he stopped with a grunt of surprise and, looking towards the river, called out sharply, "What is it?" One of the herd boys was coming at a trot towards us, and the drivers, thinking something had happened to the oxen, called a question to him. He did not answer until he reached them and even then spoke in so quiet a tone that I could not catch what he said.  But Jim, putting down the kettle, ran to his waggon and grabbing his sticks and assegais called to me in a husky shouting whisper--which imperfectly describes Jim's way of relieving his feelings, without making the whole world echo: "Ingwenye, Inkos!  Ingwenye Umkulu!  Big Clocodile!  Groot Krokodil, Baas!" Then abandoning his excited polyglot he gabbled off in pure Zulu and at incredible speed a long account of the big Crocodile: it had carried off four boys going to the goldfields that year; it had taken a woman and a baby from the kraal near by, but a white man had beaten it off with a bucket; it had taken all the dogs, and even calves and goats, at the drinking-place; and goodness knows how much more.  How Jim got his news, and when he made his friends, were puzzles never solved. Hunting stories, like travellers tales, are proverbially dangerous to reputations, however literally true they may be; and this is necessarily so, partly because only exceptional things are worth telling, and partly because the conditions of the country or the life referred to are unfamiliar and cannot be grasped.  It is a depressing but accepted fact that the ideal, lurid--and, I suppose, convincing--pictures of wild life are done in London, where the author is unhampered by fact or experience. "Stick to the impossible, and you will be believed: keep clear of fact and commonplace, and you cannot be checked."

Kruger Park Safari with Sabine Korte 21 - 24 October 2009

Sabine conducted a 4 Day Budget Kruger Park Safari with us leaving from johannesburg. Upon arriving at the Kruger National Park we started our first game drive at 15h30 on the afternoon of the 21st, the game drive delivered sightings of general game and large herds of elephant. On the second morning we left camp at 06h00 and made our way deeper into the park enjoying sightings of general game, elephant and a black rhino. After breakfast we carried on with our game drive finding our first sightings of lion and cape buffalo. We made our way to skukuza for lunch and a deserved break. After lunch we took a drive down the S1 (Doispane Road) and at about 14h30 at a distance of 7,1 Km's from the intersection of the S4 we came upon a sighting of a female lion and her 2 cubs, only to find a male lion also present with a snare around the neck. Dean informed the ranger from the area and the veterinary services who proceeded to come to the scene and look for the male in order to dart him to remove the snare. The task at hand proved to be harder than anticipated and we had to leave the scene in order to get back to camp in time before the gates closed. We were informed later that the authorities had successfully darted the lion and removed the snare.

The morning of the 23rd we left camp a little earlier and after good sightings of white rhino. After a short distance we came across a sighting of lions, one male lion with two lionesses at the Deleport water hole. The lions were quite relaxed showing little interest in the tourist presence around them. we continued conducting game drives for the duration of the day getting good sightings of elephant, buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, zebra and wildebeest. Upon our return journey to camp, we came upon a sighting of Sable antelope, these sable are seldom seeing in the park due to there low numbers in the region.

Our last morning game drive was spent around the camp of Pretoriuskop seen large herds of Zebra, Rhino and also seen our first impala lambs of the summer season that had just been born.
All in all this was a memorable safari for Sabine who wants to return to go and do some volunteer work at the Moholoholo wildlife centre in the near future.

For more info on our safaris to the Kruger national Park, please visit our Kruger Park Safaris website 
For more info on our 4 Day Budget Kruger Park Safari, please visit our 4 Day Budget Kruger Park Safari Itinerary