ENVIRONMENT
Environmental compliance
monitoring & enforcement The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), a non-profit organisation and law clinic, assists communities and civil society organisations in South Africa by advocating and litigating for environmental justice. Catherine Horsfield, CER Attorney, shares her thoughts. What steps has the mining industry taken to become more environmentally-friendly over the past 10 years? Mining companies continue to apply for coal mining rights in sensitive environments that are at the highest risk for mining, and government departments continue to accept those applications, and frequently grant those rights. The mining industry needs to invest more with reference to self-regulation in the face of poor state capacity to monitor and enforce compliance with environmental and water laws.
Are laws and legislation adequate to meet COP targets? Although the law now recognises that climate change impact assessments are mandatory for listed projects, there is no legal mechanism in place to monitor projected emissions at a cumulative and collective level. While the Climate Change Bill does introduce carbon budget and emission trajectories as mechanisms for managing emissions to meet COP targets, it lacks details and timeframes in which some of these measures need to be implemented. Beyond legislation, we are also going to need critical coordination and implementation capacity at a national level, to ensure compliance with mitigation targets; and at provincial and local
90 sabusinessintegrator.co.za
government levels to provide adequate response to adaptation challenges. The Presidential Climate Commission, which will become a permanent institution when the Climate Change Act is passed, has a crucial role to play, not only to ensure coordination amongst spheres of government and government departments, but to monitor and report on progress against climate targets.
Considering the fact SA is a developing country with a high unemployment rate, can there be a balance between mining and the environment? While it is true that the mining industry has been a major contributor to the South African economy, the vast majority of South Africans did not share in the economic benefits of the mining industry over the majority of its two-century history in this country. Moreover, the environmental externalities of mining – the water and soil pollution, the loss of land, the air pollution, and the health costs associated with these – have not been borne by the mining industry and those who finance it, but rather by the communities living around these mines. The Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) standards can play an essential tool to enable communities to negotiate their own development outcomes, including the benefits they would need
