The department of mineral resources & energy has conceded that its latest Integrated Resource Plan falls short of the government’s intention to achieve net zero by 2050 unless it is able to utilise carbon offsets.
During a public engagement session on Thursday on the draft Integrated Resources Plan 2023 (IRP 2023) Thursday, Sonwabo Damba, an energy planning specialist with the department, said the modelling for IRP 2023 has shown it would be “extremely difficult” for SA to get to a net zero position by 2050.
“We will probably have some [coal-fired] power stations that will operate beyond 2050 and we will also need gas [to achieve the least cost scenarios] that will drive up emissions,” he said.
He was referring to one of the post-2030 to 2050 energy mix scenarios in the IRP 2023, which proposes replacing coal with renewable energy and gas-to-power generation capacity. Under that scenario, emissions show an increasing trend from 2042 as gas utilisation significantly increases due to high energy demand projections from around 2041.
“We don’t think it’s possible to get to the point where we get to net zero by 2050, but our observation is net zero can be obtained by using offsets [in combination with low-carbon solutions],” Damba said.
Net zero entails any emissions being balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. To restrict global warming to no more than 1.5°C — as envisioned in the Paris Agreement — global emissions must be cut by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Carbon offsetting is a controversial approach whereby companies or countries can make up for their emissions by investing in environmental projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; for example, through land restoration.
Jacob Mbele, DG for the DMRE, said it was important to first understand what net zero means in the context of the IRP. “It does not mean zero emissions, it means [achieving zero emissions] after including all efforts aimed at mitigating emissions — others get to net zero by planting trees,” he said
The DMRE, he added, was talking to other departments and with the national energy crisis committee to formulate a definition of net zero that would apply to the “electricity plan” for the country. The discussions were ongoing and the outcome would hopefully be included in the final iteration of IRP 2023.
SA has officially stated its intention to commit to net zero, but it doesn’t yet have a formal commitment that details, for example, at what pace emissions will be reduced to reach the target by 2050.
The country has, however, committed in its revised nationally determined contributions (NDCs) — the climate action plans that countries have committed to under the Paris Agreement — to cut emissions to between 350-million and 420-million tonnes (a reduction of 22%-33%) by 2030.
The draft IRP 2023’s analysis for the energy mix scenarios presented for the period to 2030 indicates that carbon emissions are within the NDCs until 2025 and thereafter start to show a decline below the nationally determined threshold — that assumes target carbon emissions from electricity generation of between 160-million and 180-million tonnes.
For the period from 2030 to 2050, in the scenario that proposes delaying the shutdown of coal-fired power stations and “repowering” them, carbon emissions start rising again after 2030 and by 2050 would again be back at 2028/29 levels.
While the draft IRP’s scenarios that rely heavily on adding renewable energy capacity do see emissions reducing consistently towards 2050, none of them are in line with a 2050 net zero target.
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