Acclimatising physical infrastructure to extreme weather events

Acclimatising conventional infrastructure to extreme weather Climate change and extreme weather patterns are already a factor in infrastructure and shaping future models of the design, placement,... 

Conservation as cost

The conservation movement has been around for a long time. In its modern version, it can be traced to the curiosity of early explorers like Darwin, Russell, Humboldt and many others. That we think... 

Independent power producers and Weet-Bix

There is a vociferous attack on independent power producers (IPPs) and renewables in South Africa, despite the energy crisis that the country is experiencing and the fact that the long-term... 

Reflection on proposed splitting of Eskom

The mere mention of the splitting of State-owned  electricity utility Eskom into three parts invikes the conclusion that it is a Trojan horse for privatisation. There may be some validity in this... 

Building sustainable economies through good governance of extractives industry

A pertinent question remains unanswered: Can mining economies lead to sustainable economies? This is an appropriate question to ask in the context of the yearly parade in Cape Town. I am referring... 

The Eskom quagmire

As we enter the year 2019, State-owned electricity utility Eskom, once a success story of South Africa's industrialisation programme, is now an albatros around the neck of the National Treasury and... 

Reflections on global conventions in a postliberal order

I was in Sharm-El Shaik, Egypt, in November at a gathering of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of the Conference of the Parties (COP). This enclave of holiday resorts is characterised... 

Africa’s infrastructure and recent climate report

It was my first attendance at the yearly Africa Infrastructure conference, held in Sandton this year on October 9 and 10. Infrastructure has always been an interest of mine but this year it has... 

Strategic economics in times of uncertainty

In his excellent three-volume work titled Wheels of Commerce, Fernand Braudel describes countries or city states as islands in a world economy. This is a reference to the interconnectedness of the... 

The industrialisation debate in SA – what are the lessons?

Manufacturing has been in slow decline in the past decade or so. The sector has always been treated as a useful link between mining and higher-value beneficiation. Light and heavy industrialisation... 

Using Douglas North’s institutional economics to understand State capture

Douglas North remains an influential institutional economist and his work on institutional economics can help us understand economic development and long-run growth. North was awarded the Nobel... 

SA’s bioeconomy should be multipronged

The fact that South Africa does not have a White Paper or a holistic bio-economy strategy is the biggest of ironies, given that a vast variety of biological life and biodiversity can be found... 

Will the SDGs help us rewire the economy?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the new mantra, and everybody is trying to figure out the best way to leverage them; the question is whether to follow the same old path or to beat a... 

The Just Transition debate in South Africa

South Africa is the only country that explicitly includes in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) a mention of the Just Transition – this is as far as I know.   The issue of a just... 

Tackling shipping sector’s carbon emissions

Shipping emissions is an area that has not fallen under the rubric of United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCCC). The shipping industry has, by and large, avoided scrutiny of its own... 

What we must undo in post-Zuma era

During Jacob Zuma’s Presidency, South African had to contend with racial parochialism, State inaptitude and a gloomy economy. Dystopia became the only legacy the former President would bequath the... 

Tackling inequality in South Africa – the great escape

There have been clarion calls to clean up corruption in South Africa, but the greater challenge will be clawing back the effects of structural poverty. Influential voices from business have... 

Will Ramaphosa be a transformational leader or preserve the status quo?

The election in December of Cyril Ramaphosa (CR) as African National Congress (ANC) president has brought a sigh of relief to many South Africans. There is both euphoria and trepidation. The sigh... 

Rigging the nuclear outcome?

At the time of writing, it appeared nuclear would be ramped through before the African National Congress elective conference, which starts on December 16. New Energy Minister David Mahlobo says we... 

Inside the green economy

It is often assumed that the green economy only relates to a specific type of technology or shifts in energy demand. The notion of the green economy has been in existence in South Africa for a long... 

New era of disruption

Perhaps the recent multiple attacks of extreme weather – hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria – do not only tell us that fierce weather is the new normal, but changes in weather, together with other... 

Taking the green out of economy

There is only one economy, not two. The challenge all societies face today is leaving behind the legacy of an old system. How do we embark on a systems change – a shift from System A to System B?... 

Enviro rights entail more than just the environment

It is important to review where we have come from over the past 20 years and how much has been achieved in that time. South Africa's Constitution makes provision for environmental protection in its... 

Decolonising the green economy

On June 13, a good agent provocateur, former National Planning Commission member Mike Muller, proposed in a panel discussion at a Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) conference on... 

Is science losing its authority?

Scientists have, for a long time, been held in high esteem. Yet scientist struggle to effectively mediate evidenced-based outcomes in highly politicised and contested public policy issues, such as... 

New vision needed for conservation

A friend of mine, Mark Halle, argues that the world of conservation is going nowhere and that a new vision is needed to take it out of its maelstrom. I agree and often solutions are not found in... 

Political entrepreneurship in the energy sector

The expediency for rent-seeking that comes with large capital infrastructure projects is always lurking behind the scenes. The extent to which long fingers can grab as much as possible is largely... 

What can we tell of Eskom’s future from the Denton report?

The debate on the independent power producer (IPP) programme can serve as a useful distraction, and power utility Eskom is exploiting it to the full. The problem is not the IPPs, and they never... 

Going beyond the Limits to Growth debate

The Limits to Growth (LTG) thesis was developed in the 1970s by a group of experts collectively called the Club of Rome. They used a computer (at that time, they did not have sufficient data or the... 

Why the future need not be so bleak

Sometimes environmental dystopia can obscure progress. As the global climate negotiation process moves along, it is interesting to see how the climate change and fossil fuel debate is beginning to... 

Climate change in the Donald Trump era

Donald Trump's Presidency will, no doubt, have a significant impact on the progress on collective action on the climate change front. The US President-elect has promised to rip apart any semblance... 

Decolonisation of science – what is it?

A group of University of Cape Town students organised a panel discussion on the decolonisation of science, which is also another way of saying that science should be Africanised. The YouTube... 

Why technological transitions happen

Sustainability theorists have generally provided broad and abstract descriptors of technoeconomic transitions, as they are focused on drivers that shift the adoption of new technologies, displacing... 

The future is bright for renewables

It is hard for people to appreciate the history of renewables if they were not there from the beginning. Renewables started way before the large roll-out we have seen since 2012. Back then, it was... 

Can Europe survive without Britain?

The European project has been long in the making, starting with the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which involved France, Germany, England and others and formally came... 

What next for environmentalism?

This question – What's next for environmentalism? – arose from a reflection piece (which is available on the WWF-SA website) that I wrote for the Ecomodernist Manifesto (EM), which was launched in... 

Realities of modern energy planning

Energy technologies involve two realities that influence the way we do our planning: certainty and uncertainty. There is certainty in tried and tested stuff, and this relates to our experience and... 

We need to create a twenty-first century economy

We are in an interrugnam, as Marxists would say. We are stuck in a nineteenth- or twentieth-century-type economic model that sits in the way of doing things in South Africa and contrasts with a... 

Reconceiving South Africa’s water challenge

There is water and there is no water. A physical resource may be abundant but it is scarce – through waste, poor pricing, inefficient allocation or the inability of human systems to keep up with... 

Time for tough decisions as rand weakness persists

Many years back, the rand plummeted, reaching its lowest level against the dollar – close to R25 to the US currency. This was around 2001 and  prompted the then President Thabo Mbeki to launch a...