hearings

A Series of Provincial Stakeholder Engagement Workshops at which all stakeholders and interested parties will be able to comment on the National Climate Change Bill will be hosted by the Department countrywide. Further arrangement are made to cover the remainder of the nine provinces. The Department will on an ongoing basis update the schedule for meeting in other provinces.

Meetings scheduled for June 2019 are to be held as follows:

DATE	VENUE	TIME
12 June 2018	Savoy Hotel, Mthatha	09:00
14 June 2018	The Beach Hotel, Port Elizabeth	09:00
15 June 2018	Southern Sun Elangeni, Durban	09:00
26 June 2018	Nkangala District Municipality Council Chambers, Middleburg	09:00
28 June 2018	Protea Hotel Kimberley	09:00
29 June 2018	The President Hotel, Bloemfontein	09:00

SUMMARY

• The bill determines that all persons must submit a climate change plan and will be allocated a Carbon Budget by the Minister. Those failing to comply will face fines of up to R10 million and/or 10 years imprisonment.
• The purpose of the Bill is to build an effective climate change response and ensure the long-term, just transition to a climate resilient and lower carbon economy and society.
• This will be done within the context of sustainable development for South Africa, and will provide for all matters related to climate change.
• The Bill acknowledges that anthropogenic climate change represents an urgent threat to human societies and the environment, and requires an effective, progressive and well-coordinated  response.
• It further highlights that, amongst others, anticipated domestic climate change impacts have the potential to undermine the country’s development goals, and that responses to climate change raise unique challenges, thus requiring a legislative framework for the implementation of the country’s national climate change response.
• The National Climate Change Bills addresses issues related institutional and coordination arrangement across the three spheres of government namely national, provincial and local.
• It further highlights the need for the spheres of government and entities, sectors as well business to respond to challenges of  climate change.
• The bill further address the matters relating to, the national adaptation to impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and removals, and policy alignment and institutional arrangements.

The objects of the proposed Act are to:

• Provide for the  coordinated and integrated response to climate change and its impacts by all spheres of government in accordance with the principles of cooperative governance;
• Provide for the effective management of inevitable climate change impacts through enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to building social, economic, and environmental resilience and an adequate national adaptation response in the context of the global climate change response;  and to
• Make a fair contribution to the global effort to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that avoids dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system within a timeframe and in a manner that enables economic, employment, social and environmental development to proceed in a sustainable manner.