The ripple effect of the world’s 13th largest carbon emitter making such an undertaking will likely drive countries like Indonesia,India, Russia Brazil and Malaysia  to make more substantive pledges at the 26th conference of the parties on climate change.

With this mind, the climate envoys of Britain, France, the United States, Germany and the European Union are currently in South Africa.

They are seeing government , trades union, financial bodies, non governmental organisations and the energy generator ESCOM pressing for such a commitment.

Realising that it entails a monumental cost in jobs and to the fiscus the envoys are offering financial assistance.

No less than 90% of electricity generated by ESCOM’s is coal fired.

South Africa’s dependence on carbon-generated power has not diminished since it hosted the 17th COP in Durban a decade ago.

Indeed new plants like Madupe will ensure South Africa’s reliance on coal for decades to come.

But as generating sustainable energy becomes cheaper, coal-fired power become more expensive and increasingly difficult to finance..

The language in mining and energy sectors grown increasingly pro-transformation.

This is reflected in South Africa in recent pronouncements by SASOL – the oil from coal giant – and Ashanti.

The European Union is demanding tariffs that punish coal use.

The climate envoys are concentrating more on carrot than stick in their talks to a fellow G20 member committed to transformation.

Diplomatic sources say an agreement on helping finance this radical change in energy thinking will be a game changer.

Most importantly, it would come at a time when climate experts are saying the crisis is not decades or even years away but is with us right now.

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The 182-country United Nations body knows that unless elephant poaching is stopped now, the animal will disappear from the wild in a couple of decades.

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Zimbabwe and Namibia, backed by South Africa, want to be allowed to sell their stockpile of ivory.

Botswana’s ranged against them, backed by 29 other African nations, calling for an immediate and permanent ban on the sale of ivory and the destruction of stockpiles to remove its financial value.

The convention is expected to continue the ban on trading rhino horn.

However there is a well-financed lobby arguing that  those  farming rhino are protecting the species and should be permitted to make large profits by harvesting  the horn, which grows back.

The post At CITIES, Africa’s split over what do about the elephant appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

No fewer than 3 500 delegates have been accredited to Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species known as CITIES

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The fate of the savannah elephant, poached at a rate of 35 000 a year for their tusks, and the rhino, more than a thousand of which are illegally slain every year for their horns rests with the policymakers, activists and academics meeting in Sandton for the next ten days.

It’s the first time CITIES is being held in the country that houses the largest number of rhinos and second largest elephant population on the planet.

Participants from 182 countries will  regulate the status of 500 species of endangered animals and plants.

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