Facts for your next climate conversation
You might keep reading in the news, or hearing from friends and family, that South Africa still needs coal, oil and gas for socioeconomic development.
They’re repeating a common narrative. Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, repeated it in news reports last week for the umpteenth time (bizarrely, he is now insisting that fossil fuels should be part of the national Just Energy Transition).
But these assertions about development are a myth – the second that our Climate Hope resource busts, while giving evidence for a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous future.
Here are some facts that we’re using to rebut Mantashe’s statements in the media, and which are likely to silence fossil fuel enthusiasts at your next party or family gathering where the question of climate raises its thorny head:
African economies are already losing 2%–5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually due to climate impacts such as devastating floods and droughts, a World Meteorological Association report found.
Studies show that renewable energy, not fossil fuels, is associated with growth in sub-Saharan African countries.
If emissions remain high, the world’s per-capita (averaged per person) GDP could decrease 10-24% by 2100.
Hotter and Low-Income countries face disproportionately higher losses, estimated at 30–60% above the global averages above. [above x2?]
Conversely, if warming is limited to 0.01°C per year (consistent with Paris Agreement goals), the world could see a 0.25% global income gain.
Locally owned renewables boost economic resilience, unlike fossil fuels, which have risky supply pipelines and are part of volatile international markets.
Rich countries achieved most of their developmental gains before the global external costs of using fossil fuels became unsustainable and before renewable energy technologies matured into reliable and cheaper alternative.
Note that in the above, we are not making climate arguments for a shift to renewables. The economic argument for the transition is now strong enough to persuade even the staunchest climate sceptics (Mantashe and the fossil fuel lobby evidently have other motivations. Read more about this, too, in the “corruption” section of Myth 3 in our Climate Hope resource).
Do you have a myth you’d like busted? Please let us know here.
