The 21st and 22nd of July saw the hottest average consecutive days on Earth ever recorded with 2024 equally on track as the warmest year. This sizzling coincidence highlighted the pertinence and urgency of South Africa’s new Climate Change Bill signed into law on the 23rd of July, by fluke or design, less than a week before the United Nations World Nature Conservation Day.
Out of the Frying Pan
Barely a week ago, the planet reached the hottest day on record for the second day in a row, according to data from Copernicus, Europe's climate change service. Earth’s daily global average temperature hit 17.15 degrees Celsius on Monday (setting a new record for the warmest day since 1940) with some regions in the world experiencing scorching temperatures. This exceeded the previous record of 17.09 degrees Celsius set the day before. As things stand the top 10 highest annual maximum daily average temperatures on record all occurred in the last decade, with multiple years between 2015 to 2024 setting new records and by significant margins.
To date our planet has experienced 13 consecutive months of record-breaking global temperatures driven by human-caused climate change, which may signify a troubling acceleration in the overall rate of the temperature increase. Studies indicate we are now in the hottest period in the last 10,000 years, entering an age where weather and climate activity frequently surge beyond previous tolerance levels, resulting in the loss of lives, damage or destruction of property, and in crippling the agricultural sector.
A Call to Conserve
Nature is like democracy: ours, for as long as we can keep it. On July 28th the UN celebrates World Nature Conservation Day to spotlight the importance of preserving our environment and the vital role we need to play in doing so. It urges us to reflect on our relationship with nature and take steps towards sustainability, better conservation efforts and safeguards on biodiversity loss; opening our eyes to the real and deleterious impacts of climate change.
Established at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in 1972, World Environment Day recognizes the critical need for global action in industry, government and all the way down to grassroots communities. The theme for 2024 is: “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration,” which focuses on land restoration, halting desertification, and building drought resilience. This speaks to the perils of deforestation and the trickle-down effects of rising temperatures particularly on food, and the leering potential for a climate-driven refugee crisis.
Signed in Green
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the new Climate Change Bill marks the first undulations in a new movement in climate action for South Africa. The Act sets out the legal mandate for a nationwide response to align policy with limits on greenhouse gas emissions, including the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The new regulation is the country’s first comprehensive piece of legislation in this area which constitutes its contribution to the global climate change response, incorporating South Africa’s Paris Agreement targets or nationally determined contributions (NDCs) into national law.
The aim is to enhance the country’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience, while promoting opportunities for new jobs in the green economy. Climate change mitigation, or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, now has a legal basis with the upcoming allocation of carbon budgets at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan during November. The bill, introduced by the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in 2022, clearly sets out the functions of the Presidential Climate Commission and outlines the role that provinces and municipalities individually will play in mitigation efforts to ensure the realisation of a low-carbon economy that can function robustly in the maelstrom of a changing climate.
The Climate Change Act provides a key legal framework for the country to steer away from the damaging and inequitable future that has otherwise, till now, been inevitable. Making policymakers obliged to work with climate adaptation needs to be based on science for the protection of vulnerable people and the nation’s socio-economic structures. While the express formalisation of protection is welcoming and opens a new phase in South Africa’s climate action; it thus far lacks the concrete roadmap to delineate the undertaking in high-resolution to government agencies and industry - but most importantly features a crucial and worrisome omission: which is our food system.
Taking a Bite out of Climate Change
The way to mitigate climate change is through our stomachs. The global food system is a significant driver of climate change. Animal agriculture contributes a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Nearly a third of our greenhouse gas emissions are generated from producing animal-based foods, and farmed animals are responsible for 32% of global methane emissions, which is about 80 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas and a key cause of climate change.
By leaving the food system unaddressed, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be impossible. Even if fossil fuel emissions are eliminated immediately, most of the carbon budget for a 2°C scenario will still be used up by the food system. Today about 80% of global agricultural land is used to produce animal-based foods. Rewilding some of this land will allow it to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in vegetation and the soil, converting the food system into a net carbon sink. Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods, is more health-promoting and associated with lower environmental impact that the current global average diets: which rely heavily on animal products. Changing what we have on our plates, and thereby how we utilise our agricultural land, is the most significant course-correction we can make on the climate crisis.
Moving towards sustainable food systems is one of the fastest and most effective ways to combat climate change. If future regulatory developments and amendments to this new Bill in South Africa can focus on reducing our reliance on animal agriculture, it will cut emissions and free up land that can be used for carbon sequestration - delivering enormous benefits for climate and food security.
