Current issue news: December 2011Back to previous

Mega power projects in Southern Africa to impact hugely on SA

• Editorial staff

With the world just about literally poised on a knife's edge with the current global deliberations at the COP 17 conference in Durban, the Free State is also integrally linked to the outcome.

Besides being part and parcel of the South African set-up, the Free State faces some unique challenges needed to be dealt with on their own. The nature of these challenges are such that urgent and drastic addressing is required.

These challenges could briefly be summarised as follows:

• Climatic challenges. According to predictions on climate change, the Free State will be one of the worst hit provinces in South Africa as the western half of the country becomes drier and hotter, with poor and vulnerable inhabitants to be hit hardest.
• The UFS Centre for Environmental Management has published research results indicating an increased trend in daily maximum temperatures over the south-western parts of the Free State, while daily minimum temperatures have been increasing in the north-eastern part of the province.
• This warming trend has also resulted in a less severe frost season over the province. With regards to rainfall, a drying trend in the summer rainfall regions have been recorded since 1950, although rainfall remains variable over the province.
• The research results further noted that projections by climatic scientists indicate a temperature increase of approximately 2 to 3°C over the interior of the country by 2050. This could increase to 6 to 7 °C by 2100, holding dire consequences for eco-systemic functioning. To be worst affected, is the poor, communities in rural areas and women and children. Occurrences such as droughts, floods potable water shortages, sanitation pollution, crop failures, etc could profoundly effect them.
• What needs to be singled out as a sector to be drastically effected by climate change, is the province’s agricultural sector. The Free State is known as the bread basket of SA and climatic changes could have far-reaching consequences for food security.
• Potable water at cities and towns poses a huge challenge. Most municipalities have lost their Blue Drop and Green Drop status, with quality and even availability of drinking water a chronic problem. As for the Mangaung Metro Municipality, the leading municipality in the province, it is for instance estimated that it loses some 50% of its processed water through leakages and water theft.
• A third challenge is sanitation and sewerage pollution – situations at e.g. Kroonstad, Welkom, Bothaville, Parys, etc. need no elaboration.
• A tremendous challenge also for the Free State, is clean and renewable energy, with currently most of the province's energy derived from fossil-fuels.
• Emissions from Sasol plants at Sasolburg, by far the foremost industrial area in the Free State, poses a challenge of its own.
• What amounts to a crisis in the Free State, is the management by municipalities of their landfills, in fact a ticking time-bomb.
• What definitely constitutes a challenge to every individual Free State resident, is general littering, clean-up and recycling. In this instance, the Clean Free State Campaign as an informal public-private partnership initiated in Bloemfontein sets an example, but overall there is still a long way to go, to put it mildly.

These are merely some of the main challenges facing the Free State in terms of the inter-connectivity between climate change and the environment, serving as an indication how the outcome of COP 17 could have a bearing also on the province

In September this year, the province has held its own Free State Climate Change Summit as a preparatory meeting for COP 17, but indications are that little tangible results are emanating from it. It is therefore hoped that COP 17 will induce new initiatives for the province.

For this however, to be effective, meaningful cooperation between the public and private sectors is a prerequisite.