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Climate: SA 'not bothered'
09/11/2007 07:12 - (SA)
Cape Town - Only a third of adults living in South Africa's metro areas feel that climate change or global warming will affect them.
This is one of the findings of a study conducted in September by South Africa's leading marketing and social insights company, TNS Research Surveys.
The company interviewed 2 000 adults in all seven of South Africa's major metropolitan areas in a study that looked at how people feel about climate change, their use of key resources and what their carbon footprint is.
Most people put issues such as crime, HIV/Aids, corruption, poverty and unemployment, and poor service and housing delivery higher in importance than climate change.
However, Neil Higgs, Director of Innovation and Development at TNS Research Surveys said: "Although I'm a constant campaigner for poverty alleviation, better service delivery and job creation, I also know that, if we don't get together and work on reducing global warming, all these problems will become immeasurably worse within a couple of decades."
South Africa is in the top 20 emitting countries in the world, contributing three times our fair share of carbon dioxide (compared with our contribution to the world's GDP). "We all need to start re-thinking how we run our lives energy-wise," Higgs added.
South Africa's carbon dioxide emissions doubled between 1980 and 2004. We are a much less carbon efficient country than other developed nations, primarily because almost all our primary energy comes from coal. This coal is abundant and cheap and has led to South Africa having low electricity prices - making us energy extravagant. Efficient and plentiful public transport is also poor, leaving many people to use cars and taxis to commute.
The study found that poorer people are less concerned about climate change than wealthier people - not surprisingly, as, for them, the daily imperatives of poverty, a lack of jobs and poor service delivery leading to disgraceful living conditions dominate their lives. But, paradoxically, it is the poor who contribute less to global warming than the wealthy.
The study found that poorer people tend to contribute less than four tons of carbon dioxide (Co2) whilst wealthier people tend to contribute more than nine tons with some reaching well over the 16 to 20 ton mark. A few even reached 30 tons. In addition, no doubt because of their circumstances, poorer people tend to recycle and re-use packaging more, especially plastics. Overall, on average, about 77% of people say that they do not re-use or re-cycle paper, cardboard, plastics, glass or cans.
The largest contribution to people's individual energy use footprint comes from simply running one's home, this contributing 69% on average. Transport contributes another 22% and the food and packaging choices that one makes contributes 9%.
All this excludes the carbon we generate by the purchase of homes, cars, appliances, electronic equipment, furniture, clothes and other necessities of life and the use of services such as banks, cellphones, TV channels and many others.
How you can do your bit:
Turn down geysers.
Switch off unnecessary lights and use energy-efficient bulbs.
Use appliances as sparingly and as efficiently as possible.
Do not leave devices on standby; do not leave chargers plugged in when not in use.
Re-use water (and collect rainwater) if possible. Keep showers and baths short and shallow.
Recycling needs more infrastructure to work well: agitate for this. Re-using containers is easier to do.
Share your car with others; use public transport more.
Re-consider the need for flying (especially business flights - use video conferencing more).
Buy more local foods in season rather than those flown in from far away; cut back on packaging or select packaging that can be recycled or re-used. Start demanding that manufactures and retailers add the carbon footprint to labels. This is also a wake-up call for manufacturers and retailers.
Overseas, there is a move to add a product's carbon footprint to pack labels. Push for this.
Cut back on animal products where possible - have vegetarian meals or even whole days every week.
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