Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been challenged by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to do something concrete about climate change.
”As the lead minister on climate change, Van Schalkwyk spends a lot of time talking at international conferences on the need for ‘serious and immediate’ action. But he has yet to actually produce anything concrete,” DA environment spokesperson Rafeek Shah said on Wednesday.
The minister had ”dropped the ball”, and was not doing his job, he said in a statement.
”Despite the warnings contained in numerous reports about the implications of climate change for South Africa, the most recent being the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment, South Africa still does not even have a climate-change strategy.
”Van Schalkwyk needs to urgently explain what his plan is to, firstly, mitigate the consequences of South Africa’s industrial development on the environment and, secondly, minimise the effects of predicted climate change,” Shah said. — Sapa