Eco Minute 13:30

BULLETIN 31 July 1:30 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Eco Minute:

# South African Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago has warned that climate change will likely have a negative effect on the economy in the coming years. Climate change events are becoming more frequent and more severe, as evident in the recent winter storms that lashed the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Kganyago says as part of the effort to understand and mitigate climate change impacts, climate-related risk will increasingly feature as part of the bank’s stress-testing scenarios.

# The South African National Biodiversity Institute has appointed Walter Sisulu University professor Albert Modi to participate in the Ecosystem-based Adaptation Farm Project. The project aims to transform smallholder farming systems in South Africa that are vulnerable to climate change impacts, enabling them to produce food and address the country’s food insecurity. The university says as part of the project, Modi will help address challenges of productivity in the Eastern Cape’s land and marine ecosystems.

# And finally, civil society organisation Green Connection has welcomed TotalEnergies’ announcement to abandon two offshore oil and gas operations in South Africa. A subsidiary of TotalEnergies owns a 45-percent stake in a block off the southern coast where the fields, Brulpadda and Luiperd, were discovered. Green Connection’s Lisa Makaula says investments in fossil fuels that cause climate change must become a thing of the past, as there were sufficient reserves for the transition to sustainable energy:

Stay tuned for more news………….