Climate change is a ”very powerful and threatening reality”, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in Port Elizabeth on Monday.
”It could have a direct cost to our economy,” he told the congress of the Institute of Environment and Recreation Management.
Researchers have estimated that if South Africans do not immediately act to adapt to the effect of climate change, their intransigence will cost the country ”about 1,5% of GDP [gross domestic product] by 2050”.
This is ”roughly equivalent to the total annual foreign direct investment in South Africa at present”.
”Uninformed decisions in government, industry and even in households could lock South Africa’s next generation into even higher greenhouse-gas emissions, inefficient energy use, and wasteful patterns of production,” said Van Schalkwyk.
He said that because September is Tourism Month, it is important to note that tourism contributes ”R100-billion every year to our economy”.
Climate change and the resulting loss in biodiversity have the potential ”to do irreparable damage” to tourism.
”It is time to act, time to change behaviour and time to prepare our communities to deal with the social, economic and human impacts of climate change.”
It is important for managers and leaders ”to ensure that the planning decisions we take or influence today are environmentally sustainable”.
Van Schalkwyk said climate change is a ”global scourge” and requires a unified global partnership for action.
”For this reason, the Cabinet has approved the hosting of a major national conference on climate change in mid-October at Gallagher Estate in Gauteng.”
He said bringing Africa into the climate-change mainstream, by integrating all available data, is a priority. — Sapa