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Climate Change

Quick Introduction

October 2018: Start by reading the Summary by The Guardian newspaper of the IPCC announcement and the Guardian's Editorial
The IPCC must be conservative for political reasons, so their estimates and predictions are likely understated. There are far more alarming studies which conclude that the new committed infrastructure alone exceeds the available carbon budget.
There is scientific consensus that global warming is a real effect, not just a fluctuation, and that it is caused by human activity.
The most recent climate models now indicate that the earth is warming more quickly than previously estimated and could see the global average temperature rise by 7 degrees rather than just 5 by 2100. See the French CNRM press release.
Accelerating climate changes is the topic of the WMO press release. The synthesis report documents greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, shrinking ice, the state of the arctic and antarctic regions, ocean heat and acidity, extreme events and wildfires.
September 2019: the IPCC Special Report and the accompanying press release on the oceans and the "cryosphere" (the frozen parts of the earth system). The report affirms previous conclusions; quote: We will only be able to keep global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels if we effect unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, including energy, land and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure as well as industry.
United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019
This infographic summarises compactly where we stand in terms of past, present and possible future carbon emissions and the likely consequences.
October 2018: The IPCC report states that by 2030, within twelve years, CO2 emissions have to be cut by 45% from 2010 levels to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Not doing so would have the catastrophic results summarised in the Guardian resulting from warming by 2.0 degrees and require emission cuts much larger than 45%.
Global annual emissions have reached an all-time high, according to the Global Carbon Project. So far there is much talk at Katowice, but governments have little appetite for concerted action.
If you need it to be spelt out in shocking detail, read this lurid account of the uninhabitable earth published in July 2017 by New York magazine deputy editor David Wallace-Wells. He has now followed up with a book of the same title.
The Carbon Disclosure Project runs the global disclosure system for companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. Quote from the 2018 Global Climate Change Analysis: Climate Change is a threat to every sector in every country. Those who don't act are facing massive financial losses.
January 2019: The World Economic Forum in Davos has just released its Global Risks Report 2019
May 2019: with respect to biodiversity and ecosystems, the international body of scientists IPBES comes to dire conclusions, speaking of a sixth wave of extinction
December 2018: As reported in the Guardian, a consortium of the world's largest investors issued a statement at Katowice with 415 signatory financial funds. Here is their briefing paper calling for 1. achieving the Paris Agreement's goals, 2. accelerated investments into the low carbon transition e.g. putting a meaningful price on carbon and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and 3. committing to improved climate-related financial reporting.
United Nations Climate Change site

More detail

Start by reading the Summary by The Guardian newspaper and its Editorial
Katowice climate meeting December 2018 (COP24)
For the NGO view, see the ECO climate network
Article on Tipping Points highlight that the IPCC report is a conservative estimate because important feedback cycles are not fully taken into account. A feedback cycle can accelerate the rise in temperature beyond what was estimated.
A large collection of articles can be found in the Guardian Climate Change Portal
The November 2018 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin of the World Meteorological Association states that the worldwide CO2 concentration has now reached 405 ppm constituting 146% of pre-industrial levels. For explanations see the BBC article and the Guardian
Emissions of the energy industry are rising faster than ever, not falling. Here is the Guardian editorial
Melting permafrost may become one of the largest drivers of climate change; it is a typical example of an accelerating feedback loop. Research published in June 2019 in Geophysical Research Letters finds widespread and unexpectedly rapid warming of permafrost in the Canadian arctic. A Reuters article says that the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than what models had been predicting and quotes one of the authors as saying it's like a canary in a coalmine. Here is another scientific study
Oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought. Rising ocean temperatures are bad news because they absorb 93 percent of global warming energy. Here is the Science Article.
We now learn about Heat Waves on Oceans with consequences comparable to wildfires on land
July 2019: The large number of wildfires sweeping the Arctic regions is unprecented in number and in scale. See the video here and an update with satellite pictures here. The amount of CO2 emitted in June 2019 by these fires is larger than the combined output of the previous nine years. The World Meteorological Organisation estimates that the CO2 emitted equals or exceeds that of Sweden's total annual emissions.
Australian scientists have discovered that the Totten glacier lies on a water base and thereby can move faster. The impact of the glacier entering the ocean as a whole is estimated to result in a seven metre rise in sea level
A large expedition with 600 people called the mosaic expedition will soon be documenting the demise of the Arctic Ocean as we know it.
May 2019: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is thinning far faster than anticipated. A long-term overview of the ice "mass balance" appeared in Nature in June 2018.
January 2019: Greenland ice is melting faster than anticipated (Guardian) with large consequences for sea level rise; here is the scientific study
Update list of suggestions on what you can do, including answers about personal lifestyle, flying, demonstrations etc
Watch the infographics Reuters Series on the Oceans and Climate Change
Climate Transparency does country-by-country comparisons on climate in the Brown to Green Report

IPCC SR15 report

The International Panel for Climate Change on 8 October 2018 previewed its SR15 climate change report.
Headline Statements by the IPCC itself, in technical language. See eg item C1.
The Summary for Policymakers is already quite technical, and most people will not want to read the full SR15 report

Climate Change and Economics

Global warming increases inequality: poorer countries get poorer, rich northern ones get richer, see Stanford research study and the corresponding article in the Mail & Guardian

South Africa

National

South Africa country profile show that South Africans emit on average 9.6 tonnes of CO2 per capita per year, which is higher than the G20 average. By far the largest component is energy, which included electricity generation, industry and transport.
Mail and Guardian talks of a paradigm shift along with a 12 October summary of the IPCC announcement and the estimated Implications for Africa
Meanwhile, South Africa is blowing its carbon budget
City Press reaction 17 October 2018
South Africa is heavily reliant on coal.
SA's disastrous CO2 emission performance is mainly due to coal-fired power stations. By far the largest new construction capacity is, however, located in China and India.
Meanwhile, the SA coal industry continues to claim that all is fine, citing current income, current employment, current prospects and current excuses, with no regard of the drastic changes which are more than likely in the coming years. Clean coal will solve all their imminent problems and bad image, they think.

Second Climate Change Report 2016

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Department of Environmental Affairs collection of studies and policy
African Climate and Development Initiative of the University of Cape Town
See also the Namibian Institute for Public Policy Research
Elections 2019, climate change and environment
First get an overview of what is available on the national level. For provincially-registered parties, you have to turn to the Independent Electoral Commission itself. None of the manifestos even remotely aspire to what needs to be done to prevent temperature rises above 1.5 Celsius.
- WESSA has brought out a comprehensive analysis of the election manifestos of 11 parties. This document is probably the most objective comparison.
- In its 68-page manifesto, the ANC devotes exactly three bullet points with a total length of eight lines to the topic
- On the DA manifesto website, climate change does not even make it into the top 40 priorities. You have to dig into the booklet to find less than a page on the topic, with rather comfortable targets.
- As of writing, only a secondary source for the EFF manifesto can be found. Only 2 out of 170 pages cover "Environment and Climate". The "ambitious" goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 10 % by 2024.
- See also the articles in the Mail and Guardian and in the Daily Maverick on the ANC here, on the DA here and on the EFF here.

Carbon Tax Bill and Regulations

November 2018: Treasury has announced that the carbon tax will be implemented from June 2019. Treasury has also published Draft Regulations on carbon offsets along with an explanatory note. The regulations were revised after comments received. Here is the Draft Carbon Tax Bill (Dec 2017), and an explanatory memorandum.

Western Cape and Stellenbosch

The destructive Knysna wildfire and the Bettys Bay fire of Januar 2019 are seen as portents of what is to come. The Knysna fire cost the insurance industry dearly, and re-insurance rates rose steeply after the event. Those who claim that mitigating and adapting to climate change harms the economy need to take note --- or else be overtaken by events on the ground.
The Western Cape falls into a mediterranean climate zone, for which wildfire is predicted to become a rapidly growing problem. See this article on recent California wildfires to get an idea of the systemic trends which we are also facing.
Some photographs of the January 2019 Bettys Bay Fire