South Africa may seek bunker fuel carbon tax relief
South Africa could be negatively affected by the proposed global carbon tax on bunker fuels for the international aviation and shipping industries, but there are methods of alleviating this which the government is exploring as part of its negotiating position at the COP17 climate summit, Daily News reports.
This was revealed by Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin, who was speaking at a panel discussion at the launch of a WWF-SA report, “Towards a Green Economy: Envisaging success at COP17” – one of numerous side events at the summit this week.
The carbon tax has been proposed as one of the major funding sources for the UN’s Green Climate Fund which is designed to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. It is supposed to reach $120 billion by 2020.
“This (proposed transport tax) has been heavily caucused by WWF, and rightly so,” Cronin noted.
Although the tax would have negative impacts on some countries like South Africa, Chile and Argentina which had to send their exports long distances to primary markets, there could be a rebate system for developing countries, he suggested.
“And in our (COP17) negotiating position, we’re pushing into this space. There are lots of uncertainties, but certainly we think we must open this debate and not shut it down.”
Cronin also said that the significant role of transport in global greenhouse gas emissions was not being discussed sufficiently in the climate change debate.
He pointed out that the transport sector was the second largest emitter after the energy sector, contributing somewhere between 10 percent and 18 percent of South Africa’s total greenhouse emissions, and that it was also responsible for the fastest growing share of emissions.
About 70 percent of South Africans relied on “dreadful” public transport and the country had been “very slow” to improve the efficiency of its public transport, although the government had enjoyed some successes, like the minibus taxi recapitalisation programme.
It was very important to make “modal shifts” in transport and where possible people should not travel at all – “politicians are the worst offenders”.
Ideally, the government wanted as many people as possible to be transported in bigger, “mass mover”, vehicles.
Cronin said his department was making “significant” rolling grants totalling R18bn to 12 cities to help them introduce fully integrated public transport systems.
However, its greatest push was to improve the railway system, which was “in principle” the best mode of transport for the country, and the cabinet had approved capital expenditure of R135bn over 20 years.
Although rail had “been king in the bad/good old days”, there had been severe under-investment since the 1970s.
But even improving the rail system did not necessarily resolve the problems.
This was revealed by Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin, who was speaking at a panel discussion at the launch of a WWF-SA report, “Towards a Green Economy: Envisaging success at COP17” – one of numerous side events at the summit this week.
The carbon tax has been proposed as one of the major funding sources for the UN’s Green Climate Fund which is designed to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. It is supposed to reach $120 billion by 2020.
“This (proposed transport tax) has been heavily caucused by WWF, and rightly so,” Cronin noted.
Although the tax would have negative impacts on some countries like South Africa, Chile and Argentina which had to send their exports long distances to primary markets, there could be a rebate system for developing countries, he suggested.
“And in our (COP17) negotiating position, we’re pushing into this space. There are lots of uncertainties, but certainly we think we must open this debate and not shut it down.”
Cronin also said that the significant role of transport in global greenhouse gas emissions was not being discussed sufficiently in the climate change debate.
He pointed out that the transport sector was the second largest emitter after the energy sector, contributing somewhere between 10 percent and 18 percent of South Africa’s total greenhouse emissions, and that it was also responsible for the fastest growing share of emissions.
About 70 percent of South Africans relied on “dreadful” public transport and the country had been “very slow” to improve the efficiency of its public transport, although the government had enjoyed some successes, like the minibus taxi recapitalisation programme.
It was very important to make “modal shifts” in transport and where possible people should not travel at all – “politicians are the worst offenders”.
Ideally, the government wanted as many people as possible to be transported in bigger, “mass mover”, vehicles.
Cronin said his department was making “significant” rolling grants totalling R18bn to 12 cities to help them introduce fully integrated public transport systems.
However, its greatest push was to improve the railway system, which was “in principle” the best mode of transport for the country, and the cabinet had approved capital expenditure of R135bn over 20 years.
Although rail had “been king in the bad/good old days”, there had been severe under-investment since the 1970s.
But even improving the rail system did not necessarily resolve the problems.