Abstract
Global environmental politics is emerging as a key field for South African diplomacy and foreign policy, in which Pretoria is endeavouring to lead by example. Environmental summits and conferences such as Johannesburg (2002) and Copenhagen (2009) have been crucial stages for the performance of this role as an environmental leader, and in December 2011 Durban will host the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are also signs from within policy-making circles that ‘the environment’ is seen as a field in which some of the lustre of South Africa’s post-1994 international high moral standing could be recovered. However, tensions remain between South Africa’s performance and rhetoric on the global stage, and domestic development paths which continue to be environmentally unsustainable. The article concludes by suggesting that while the visibility and prominence of South Africa as an actor in global environmental politics is likely to grow, it remains doubtful whether this represents a sustained and committed new direction in South African foreign policy.
Keywords
Convincing leadership in global environmental politics is currently remarkable by its absence. In the space left vacant by the failure of the USA, and increasingly the EU, to provide meaningful or inspirational leadership on environmental issues, other state and non-state actors are repositioning themselves. One of the few clear outcomes of the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Copenhagen in December 2009 was the emergence of Brazil, China, India and South Africa as key players in climate change debates. 1 Developing countries have also taken the lead on other environmental issues such as conservation and deforestation. Such trends belie the tendency in much of the literature on global environmental politics to look for leadership from the so-called developed states. 2 In this article I consider the increasing salience of global environmental issues for South African foreign policy and diplomacy since 2002, and argue that ‘the environment’ represents a field in which South Africa is attempting to exert political leadership. This was evident at the Johannesburg UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002, at the Copenhagen COP15 meeting in 2009, and in the decision to award the COP17 meeting in December 2011 to South Africa and the city of Durban. It is necessary, however, to critically explore the foundations of this emergent leadership, particularly in terms of the direction of South Africa’s domestic environmental policies, in the light of which, I argue that while it seems likely that South Africa will be an increasingly visible and significant actor in global environmental politics, current South African leadership is based on a form of symbolic and opportunistic politics – leadership by example – which rests on unsure foundations. Turning this potential into effective global leadership on environmental issues will require the development of a much more sustained and coherent environmental policy, as well as serious reconsideration of other areas of economic and development policy.
The following section contextualises this argument by examining some of the recent theoretical debates over the nature and drivers of South African foreign policy, as well as the ways in which leadership has usually been conceptualised within global environmental politics. The article then proceeds by examining key manifestations of South Africa’s emerging environmental leadership, focusing on summits and high-level conferences such as Johannesburg (2002), Copenhagen (2009), and Durban (2011). The prominence of such meetings in South African environmental policy indicates the rationality of leadership by example on which South African diplomacy appears to be based. These summits are then considered in the light of the evolution of South African environmental and climate change policies, noting some of the critiques and contradictions of their domestic stance. I conclude by arguing that the underlying rationality upon which South African environmental leadership is based is an exemplary but rather opportunistic one in contrast to more sustained and deep-rooted forms of political leadership. If South Africa is going to exercise significant environmental leadership on global issues like climate change it will require more radical commitments to sustainability, and thoroughgoing institutional and policy reforms.
Theorising South African foreign policy and environmental leadership
South Africa is an important case for debates on foreign policy because of the saliency of questions regarding the possibility and effectiveness of an ethical approach to international relations. Under apartheid South African relations with the outside world were marked by increasing isolation from international institutions; a stance of defensive suspicion towards, or active destabilisation of, African neighbours; and diplomatic and discursive pressure from the anti-apartheid movement’s mobilisation of global public opinion. 3 It was therefore a signal of the considerable transformations taking place in the country when the ANC set out a vision of a future South African foreign policy defined around the pursuit and defence of democracy and human rights. In an article in Foreign Policy in 1993 Nelson Mandela argued that the time had come for ‘South Africa to take up its rightful and responsible place in the community of nations’, and proposed an ethical attitude to foreign affairs that would constitute ‘our own positive contribution to peace, prosperity and goodwill in the world’. 4
After 1994 the new democratic government actively sought to reintegrate itself into international society. It was ‘the only child of the new order’ proclaimed by Ronald Reagan in 1990, and for many South Africa’s transformation symbolised the hopes of a new post-Cold War order of democracy, non-racialism and human rights. 5 South Africa hosted a number of major international conferences, including the ninth UN Conference on Trade and Development in 1996, the twelfth Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1999, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances in 2001, and the World Parks Congress in 2003. 6 It was noted that hosting summits was becoming ‘a very visible feature of South African diplomacy’, a feature which would become a central element of future environmental diplomacy. 7 South Africa also chaired the Commonwealth from 2000 to 2001, the Non-Aligned Movement from 1996 to 2000, and the African Union (which replaced the Organisation of African Unity) in 2002. It was welcomed back into the UN as the prodigal child returned, and lauded for its proactive multilateralism, public and voluntary renunciation of nuclear weapons, and its domestic achievements since 1994. 8 This process of reintegration culminated in 2007 with South Africa’s election to a temporary seat on the Security Council. As such, South African foreign policy in this period constituted part of President Thabo Mbeki’s broader vision of an ‘African Renaissance’, 9 in which South Africa would play a key role as a bridge between the global North and South, and ‘as a resolver of conflict and deliverer of hope in Africa, and perhaps beyond’. 10
Some of this international lustre and high moral standing of the 1990s has been dimmed by the inevitable compromises, contradictions and complications of post-apartheid South African politics. In particular analysts have pointed to the visibly declining prominence of human rights and democracy as foreign policy principles, particularly in light of South Africa’s cooperation with China and Russia to prevent Security Council resolutions condemning and imposing sanctions on the Burmese regime, as well as opposition to resolutions condemning Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and the use of rape as a political and military weapon. 11 The protracted crisis in Zimbabwe and the failure of South African ‘quiet diplomacy’, the Mbeki government’s disastrous and globally humiliating stance on HIV/AIDS, and the political and legal difficulties faced by President Jacob Zuma have all further diminished the high moral standing the country enjoyed in the immediate post-apartheid period. 12 For some realist commentators, ironically, this transition to a more prosaic and hard-headed foreign policy has been welcomed in contrast to the ‘attention-grabbing universalism’ of the Mandela era. 13 Looking ahead in 2008 to the transition in the presidency from Mbeki to Jacob Zuma, via Kgalema Motlanthe, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos observed that the ‘new 2009 government will no longer be perceived as the favoured returnee to the international community’, and as such will be returned to the ranks of the ‘normal’, rather than exceptional, members of international society. 14
South African foreign policy since 1994 has therefore been criticised by idealists for compromising early commitments to human rights and democracy, as well by realists who have lambasted its ambiguities and contradictions, and the lack of clarity regarding the national interest. During the 1990s, for example, there were allegations that policy was being driven by the public statements of President Nelson Mandela, rather than vice versa. 15 Explanations of these contradictions, ambiguities and oscillations have focused on a number of factors, such as the competing influences of a wide array of actors and institutions on the formulation of foreign policy; supposed clashes between ANC internationalism and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) realism; and South Africa’s structural position as an emerging or middle power straddling the developed and developing worlds, speaking alternately to the rest of the African continent, other emerging powers like Brazil and India, and major allies such as the USA. 16
In contrast, what could be broadly termed constructivist perspectives have emphasised the mutually constitutive role of the domestic and international realms, and the centrality of national identity construction in South African foreign policy since 1994. Rather than critiquing the ambiguities and contradictions between realist and idealist foreign policy stances, authors such as Olivier Serrão and Paul-Henri Bischoff have argued that South Africa’s post-1994 foreign policy should be seen as the working out of a national identity which is itself deeply contested and under construction. 17 From this perspective foreign policy statements and actions – such as Mandela’s vision in 1993 of an ethical foreign policy based around promoting democracy and human rights – should not be regarded as promotion of an actually existing national interest, but rather as an attempt to re-imagine South African national identity at a time when the very foundation of the South African state is under negotiation.
Such perspectives entail an expanded conception of the nature of power in international relations. Power has tended to be seen by realists in terms of the ability of states – particularly global or regional hegemons – to persuade or coerce other states into particular courses of action. 18 In these terms South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy has usually been interpreted as either that of a middle power mediating between and balancing the great powers, 19 or as a regional hegemon able to dictate (at least to some extent) continental and southern African positions on a range of issues from global governance to climate change. 20 These perspectives rest upon what Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall have termed ‘institutional’ and ‘compulsory’ forms of power relation in international politics, the former in which actors control or steer the conduct of other actors through a variety of formal and informal institutions (such as norms or regimes), and the latter, following Dahl, being ‘the ability of A to get B to do what B otherwise would not do’. 21
Barnett and Duvall argue, however, that power in international politics is not exhausted by these forms, and also consists of ‘structural’ and ‘productive’ power relations, in which ‘power works through social relations that analytically precede the social or subject positions of actors and that constitute them as social beings with their respective capacities and interests’. 22 Productive forms of power are particularly relevant to the ways in which foreign policy has played a constitutive role in the broader shaping and reshaping of South African national identity. Such perspectives also allow for a fuller conception of the nature of leadership in international politics. Rather than leading by compelling other states to adopt particular courses of action, institutional arrangements or normative values, leadership can also be conceived in more productive and discursive terms.
Leadership in global environmental politics has been most usually conceptualised in terms of regime formation. According to Oran Young,
[a] leader in this context is an actor who, desiring to see a regime emerge and realising that imposition is not feasible, undertakes to craft attractive institutional arrangements and to persuade others to come on board as supporters of such arrangements.
23
For Karlsson et al. this is described as ‘structural leadership’, in contrast to ‘directional leadership’ which encompasses unilateral action or leading by example, and ‘ideas-based leadership’ which denotes problem framing and norm promotion. 24 South Africa’s promotion of human rights and democracy in the mid-1990s, or the public renunciation of nuclear weapons prior to the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty extension negotiations, for example, have frequently been interpreted in terms of the literature on norm entrepreneurs, where leaders ‘attempt to convince a critical mass of states (norm leaders) to embrace new norms’. 25 Indeed South Africa has consistently sought to project itself as a leader of the developing world and Africa, albeit with varying and limited degrees of success. 26
In the field of environmental diplomacy, however, South Africa has not been particularly effective either in terms of power over other states, or in terms of regime-building or norm entrepreneurship. Rather, South African diplomacy has relied upon its preferred role as a mediator between the global North and South, and its symbolic and inspirational reiterated performance of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ identity. For example, in the UNFCCC negotiations it has been observed that ‘South Africa was an active participant in the talks and a recognised bridge-builder with a well-regarded negotiations team’. 27 This role has been particularly evident at major international summits and conferences, and a major platform of South African diplomacy has been, as Cornelissen notes, ‘using key UN events or conferences to raise its stature and to mark foreign policy priorities’. 28 Such events reveal the prevalence of forms of productive power and the re-branding of national identity. The rise of ‘Brand South Africa’ at such international mega-events is symptomatic of broader trends in international politics, in which nations are increasingly seeking to utilise public relations and marketing forms of knowledge to position themselves in a global marketplace. 29 This literature on ‘brand states’, to use Peter van Ham’s phrase, captures many of the post-1994 developments in South African foreign policy, and highlights the close interrelationship between foreign policy and national identity formation. 30 The transition from international pariah to celebrated returnee is a clear example of highly successful international re-branding, drawing upon widespread media attention and praise for South Africa’s transition and democratisation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a vibrant economy and tourism sector, the successful hosting of major sporting events, and a strong tradition of cultural exports. 31 Such re-branding successes do not occur by accident, and in August 2002 South Africa established an International Marketing Council (IMC) to ‘help create a positive and compelling brand image for South Africa’. 32 According to the most prominent index of nation brands, the Anholt brand value survey, ‘Brand South Africa is worth well over half a trillion rand’, 33 and Nelson Mandela was reported to be ‘the world’s second-most recognised “brand” after Coca-Cola’. 34
While this literature focuses mainly on the commercial and economic dimensions of branding, 35 South Africa’s evolving foreign policy has drawn upon the political and performative dimensions of international branding. The importance of theatrical forms and techniques – from staging to rhetoric, plot to characterisation – in diplomacy and foreign policy is well known, and, as van Ham points out, ‘to do their jobs well in the future, politicians will have to train themselves in brand asset management’. 36 Major global summits and conferences – such as Johannesburg in 2002, Copenhagen in 2009 and Durban in 2011 – are significant sites of nation-branding, and for performing a particular national identity. 37 Moreover, environmental politics is a powerful field for the performance and branding of national identity for a country such as South Africa, where the landscape, flora and fauna are important elements of both the national imagination and to international perceptions of the country. 38 The form of leadership by example that South Africa has tried to perform at these global mega-conferences therefore includes both ‘directional’ and ‘idea-based’ forms of leadership – both unilateral initiatives and consensus-building. 39
The following sections of this article explore how environmental issues have figured in South African attempts to re-brand a national identity as an exemplary leader in environmental politics, as a ‘negotiating capital of the world’ 40 and as a ‘custodian of sustainable development’. 41 These forms of leadership are not best conceptualised as examples of compulsory, institutional or structural power, but rather as forms of productive power involving the contestation and constitution of South African national identity in the ongoing project of redefining the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in a global context.
South Africa and global environmental politics
While environmental issues have rarely taken centre stage in foreign policy circles, it is significant that the environment and the landscape are powerful cultural and political motifs in South Africa. There is a deep-seated attachment to the land, the soil, the open veldt, the bush, the mountains and the sea in the South African national imagination. 42 A particular Afrikaner outdoor masculinity, the tourism value of the country’s national parks and iconic sites like Table Mountain, and what might be termed an African humanist attachment to the land (and its dispossession), have all come together to render ‘the environment’ a potentially nodal concept in South African national branding. It was no accident that Thabo Mbeki’s iconic ‘I am an African’ speech began by asserting ‘I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.’ 43
This discursive resonance has been reflected in a number of foreign policy statements in the last decade, as well as the tentative emergence of a South African national brand as both ‘the negotiating capital of the world’ and ‘the custodian of sustainable development’. International recognition of this brand was achieved in 2005 with the award of an inaugural UN Environment Programme (UNEP) ‘Champions of the Earth’ award to Thabo Mbeki and South Africa for ‘their commitment to cultural and environmental diversity’, their progress on targets for providing clean water and sanitation, and ‘world leadership in conservation practices’. 44 Climate change has emerged in the last few years as a significant exemplar of this broader environmental leadership, and authors such as Godwell Nhamo have argued that ‘although not fully recognized as a climate leadership torch-bearer globally, South Africa deserves special mention in the climate change space as an emerging champion’. 45 Interviewees agreed that climate change issues have become more prominent in political circles in South Africa in recent years. 46 The following sections highlight this evolving brand through consideration of three major summits and conferences – Johannesburg (2002), Copenhagen (2009) and Durban (2011) – as well as the evolution of policy in the areas of climate change and environmental politics.
The Johannesburg Summit
The 2002 Johannesburg Summit came ten years after the Rio Earth Summit and was a landmark moment in global environmental politics, as well as marking the effective launch of the South African brand as an environmental leader. Representatives from over 190 countries, 100 world leaders and about 22,000 other participants attended the main conference in the Sandton Convention Centre, while a further 15,000 attended one or more of the many side events, such as the parallel Global People’s Forum, making it plausibly the largest political meeting in human history. 47 Convened to review progress on sustainable development since 1992, and identify new areas of concern, the size and media attention of the summit offered participants a highly visible stage on which to perform a leading role in global environmental politics. Despite the lack of substantial new commitments or legal principles, the festival atmosphere, wide-ranging state and non-state participation, and the eventual negotiation of a consensus text somewhat against the odds led many to regard the summit as a qualified success, pointing to the announcement of over 250 multi-stakeholder partnership projects as evidence of a new vitality and commitment to implementing sustainable development in practice. 48 For ten days in Johannesburg in 2002, participants reflected, one could be forgiven for feeling that ‘one world had come to one country’ and that a new and united world order could emerge, inspired by the South African example. 49
The summit was widely regarded within diplomatic circles as an organisational triumph for South Africa, especially considering that ‘ten years ago, it would have been inconceivable that South Africa could have hosted such an event’. 50 Despite substantial and vocal civil society protests outside the main venues, the conference ran smoothly and achieved a consensus text, albeit one that was rather limited in scope and commitments. Even more importantly, however, the convincing South African performance of a message of optimism, reconciliation and the overcoming of past injustices seemed to encapsulate the best hopes for multilateral negotiations and global cooperation. International commentators observed that with ‘its history of reaching negotiated settlements on complex issues, South Africa provides an auspicious venue for providing innovative solutions to the challenges of sustainable development’. 51 No one individual seemed to represent these qualities more than Nelson Mandela, and through his presence – although he was no longer president – the image of South Africa as a ‘Rainbow Nation’ which had overcome the injustices and divisions of the past was repeatedly invoked. He elicited a predictably excitable reaction, with numerous heads of state queuing up for photo opportunities and a dose of ‘Madiba magic’. 52 Mandela’s high global profile contributed to the success of South Africa’s branding as a host for international negotiations, and Dr Brigalia Bam, chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, declared that ‘South Africa’s hosting of the Summit indicated once again that South Africa’s international standing is going from strength to strength’, before concluding that ‘South Africa has become a major destination for international dialogue. It has simply become the “Negotiating capital of the world”’. 53 Summit organisers confirmed that South Africa was actively ‘trying to build [itself] as a conference destination’, 54 and commentators reflected that Johannesburg was in some senses a ‘coming of age ceremony’. 55
Diplomatically, South African politicians played an active role before, during and after the summit to ensure its success. In particular, pressure was applied after the disastrous Bali preparatory meeting to try to persuade heads of state to attend the summit and to bolster support for a draft negotiating text still full of brackets. 56 The conclusion of the summit with agreement on the main negotiated outcomes therefore confirmed the growing South African brand as successful international conference hosts – even if the limited nature of the Johannesburg outcomes was a source of disappointment to many in the NGO, environmental and development communities. 57 Indeed, as Cornelissen has observed, the many disagreements and disputes during the summit, as well as South Africa’s role as host, prevented the country from speaking convincingly on behalf of either the developing world or the African continent. 58 However, a broadly successful performance as responsible hosts and conciliatory negotiators, even in difficult circumstances, reconsolidated this emerging central element of South African national branding. This brand image drew upon the perception that South Africans have unique and valuable lessons to teach the international community about peaceful negotiations and reconciliation. A collective statement by South African NGOs during the summit noted their country’s ‘unique experience and skill in managing our complex and continuous political transformation’, and asserted that ‘South Africa is chairing the WSSD because, as people, we defeated apartheid’. 59 One NGO director observed that ‘the recent South African experience is rich with innovative and creative facilitation techniques for solving conflict’. 60
The South Africans also used the summit to showcase a vision of how sustainable development was to be implemented. As Mbeki explained to the South African parliament in the summit aftermath:
as a host country the successful outcome of the Johannesburg World Summit places a special responsibility on us to be – in our own habits and practices – among the global leaders in sustainable development. Just as South Africa provided the leadership required of it at the Summit and … hosted with widely acclaimed success the biggest-ever multilateral event, so too must South Africa serve as a shining example in putting into action the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.
61
For some observers, the summit raised the profile of sustainable development in South Africa to the degree that ‘it changed the way government worked’. 62 An inter-ministerial cabinet committee on sustainable development was set up, and South African leadership within the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) has been prominent since 2002. 63 In terms of the accredited partnerships that were included in the summit outcomes, South Africa was the second most active state participant, involved in 30 partnerships. By January 2010 this had risen to 53 partnerships on the CSD database. 64 In the words of a prominent South African businessman, the summit ‘was very powerful … it put us on the global map. I think it made us the custodian of sustainable development in some way, for the next five or ten years’. 65
In this role as ‘custodians of sustainable development’ South Africa used the summit to showcase a range of sustainability initiatives and projects in the country, including the ‘Greening the Summit’ initiative which aimed to reduce the ecological footprint of the event and was ‘pioneering the way international events will be organised’. 66 This involved ‘green’ electricity generation, carbon off-setting and social regeneration projects, inner-city clean-ups and injections of money into the transport and infrastructure of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. 67 A Zero Waste programme sought to reduce the waste produced by the event and recycle as much as possible. 68 This exemplary legacy has been actively mobilised at subsequent mega-events in the form of extensive greening and environmental sustainability projects, most notably the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 69
More broadly, the summit was used to communicate and publicise national policies to address the environmental and social injustices inherited from the apartheid era. An ANC statement at the summit proclaimed successes in overcoming the apartheid backlog in areas of water supplies, housing and electrification. 70 Substantial criticisms of ANC policies in all these areas, especially neo-liberal policies of cost-recovery and privatisation at the municipal level, were largely unheard by international guests. 71 The Johannesburg Summit was therefore used to promote a particular image of South African transformation and to portray the country as an inspirational example in global environmental politics. This was succinctly articulated by one of the conference organisers who reflected that ‘South Africa is the one place there is hope that sustainable development is possible … maybe Mandela walks into the room and everything changes’. 72
South Africa in Copenhagen
Seven years after the Johannesburg Summit, and on the back of a strong diplomatic presence within the CSD, the UNFCCC negotiations, a leading role within the G77, and a two-year seat on the UN Security Council, South Africa was again to play a prominent role on the global stage. While there are a great many differences between the Johannesburg and Copenhagen conferences – most obviously that at the COP15 meeting in 2009 South Africa was not the host but merely another attendee – there are certain similarities in the manner in which the South African government was able to use the high-profile ‘mega-conference’ as a site to perform its brand of leadership by example. Indeed, by the end of the conference, and with the emergence of the Copenhagen Accord from negotiations between the USA and the emergent BASIC grouping (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), it seemed that South Africa was firmly placed at the heart of the ‘coalition of the willing’ that would drive climate governance in the post-Kyoto phase. 73
South Africa’s astute grasp of the theatricality of summit diplomacy was demonstrated in the announcement a day before the conference opened that, ‘being a responsible global citizen’, South Africa would reduce its carbon dioxide emissions growth by 34 per cent by 2020. 74 In response to this seemingly ambitious and trail-blazing opening gambit, Michelle Ntab Ndiaye, executive director of Greenpeace Africa, observed that ‘this makes South Africa one of the stars of the negotiations’. 75 Critical South African civil society groups responded with scepticism, noting that questionable baseline estimates, unrealistic macro-economic growth projections, and a coal-reliant energy policy suggested the target was implausible. ‘It seems like South Africa just want to shine in the negotiations and then continue with business as usual’, remarked one activist. 76 Despite these valid criticisms, what is significant here is the conscious attempt by Pretoria to seize the diplomatic limelight on this global stage – and the relative success of this move with international audiences.
South African negotiators were prominent throughout the COP15 process, performing a delicate multilevel negotiating game within the G77, the African bloc and the emerging industrialised economies, with varying degrees of success. Their diplomatic prominence was cemented in the dying hours when, just as it appeared that the conference would end without an agreement, the heads of state of the USA, China, Brazil, India and South Africa announced the Copenhagen Accord, a deal which seemed to shift negotiations from the multilateral re-negotiation of the Kyoto regime to a major-emitters-led ‘coalition of the willing’. The accord contained no fixed targets or timeframes, and was a political rather than a legal agreement. However, it did allow national targets to be formally announced and recorded on 31 January 2010 – when South Africa reiterated its 34 per cent target by 2020 – and the UNFCCC process limped onwards to Cancun, Mexico, in November 2010. The composition of the parties to the accord represented a side-stepping of the hitherto leading bloc in global climate policy – the EU – which had been unable to produce a negotiated agreement. 77 In the verdict of Themba Linden of Greenpeace Africa, ‘the BASIC countries have to lead the world in light of no leadership from the developed world’. 78
In the conference aftermath, however, South African negotiators publicly expressed their disappointment with the deal struck in Copenhagen. According to Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, the Copenhagen outcome was ‘not acceptable. It’s definitely not acceptable. It’s disappointing.’ 79 Blame for the poor outcome was laid at the feet of the Danish organisers by the South Africans, who remarked that the conference was undermined by an ‘atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that Denmark was plotting to force its own position on other nations’. 80 Although unstated, there was an implicit contrast between the South African chairing of the Johannesburg Summit in 2002, compared to the angry recriminations regarding ‘a certain Viking way of conducting business’ that followed Copenhagen. 81 This dual stance of both preventing the negotiations from collapsing entirely by helping to draft the accord, and then claiming later that they had actually desired a far stronger deal, enabled the South Africans to maintain a high-profile performance of leading by example in Copenhagen.
This was certainly not an uncontested stance, and many African states and civil society groups condemned (both in public and in private) South Africa’s abandonment of the African Union negotiating position, which was that global temperatures should be kept to a 1.5°C rise, in contrast to the 2°C target in the Copenhagen Accord. The Sudanese chair of the G77 bloc, Lumumba Di-Aping, pronounced that the agreement asked
Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries. It is a solution based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces.
82
South Africa had already been publicly criticised by Di-Aping for having ‘actively sought to disrupt the bloc’s unity’ during the negotiations, 83 although following an official complaint from the South Africans he retracted the comment and apologised. After the final agreement, however, Di-Aping criticised Jacob Zuma personally for not having shown more leadership. 84 The widespread absence of other African countries, with a few exceptions, from the list of countries’ targets announced on 31 January 2010 signified their anger with the outcome of the process, and reflects the frequent resistance that meets South African assertions of continental leadership.
South Africa as host: Durban 2011
While their exemplary performance in Copenhagen was certainly mixed, South Africa was able to maintain a very high profile within global environmental diplomacy, and is now widely regarded as a pivotal player in the BASIC + USA coalition that will drive climate policy in the short- to medium-term future. Perhaps in recognition of its self-proclaimed reputation as ‘negotiating capital of the world’ South Africa hosted the ministerial meeting of the BASIC group in April 2010, and is scheduled to host the crucial COP17 meeting in Durban, from 28 November to 9 December 2011. Further recognition of the country’s constructive role was accorded when South Africa’s ex-Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, was proposed in mid-2010 as the replacement for Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the UNFCCC. Despite eventually being passed over in favour of Christiana Figueres, van Schalkwyk has a respected international profile and is regarded as a ‘bridge builder’ between developed and developing countries. Prior to Figueres’ nomination, UN sources declared that ‘having a South African chief at the helm would give the conference major impetus’. 85 In support of van Schalkwyk, President Zuma declared that he had ‘positioned South Africa as a true climate champion’ during his time as Environment Minister. 86
The award of the COP17 meeting to South Africa and Durban is therefore a signal of the prominence of the country within climate change circles, and indicates the widespread belief that South Africans have considerable credibility as negotiation hosts. It was greeted by domestic media as ‘both a mark of South Africa’s growing diplomatic status and another opportunity to shine on the world stage’. 87 There have been allegations of disputes between the Department of International Relations and Co-operation and the Department of Environmental Affairs over who should take the lead on the COP17 conference, reflecting its importance for South Africa’s international prominence and national branding. 88 City organisers in Durban claim proudly that their ‘bold response to the challenges of climate change and variability have positioned the city as a global leader in the field of climate protection planning and established it as the “Climate Capital” of South Africa’. 89 Durban fought off strong competition from Cape Town for the right to host the event, and rumours that they were successful because of the greater ease of policing the conference centre and securing delegates from protestors have already contributed to tensions around the logistics. 90 However, organisers are confident that the conference will ‘mark a critical moment in the ongoing international climate change negotiations, and Durban is a fitting host for an event of this magnitude and significance’. 91 Such self-confidence is common in South African foreign policy. According to Kuseni Dlamini, the CEO of South African firm Old Mutual, ‘South Africa punches above its weight in global affairs in general and in the global climate change debate in particular’, and there is now a need for ‘a new brand of climate-change diplomacy’ in which ‘South Africa can and must lead the charge’. 92 After the low-key COP16 meeting in Cancun, which went some way to putting the negotiations back on track, Durban 2011 is increasingly regarded as a key moment for the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC. South African hosting and leadership will therefore assume critical importance in climate change circles in 2011.
Climate change and environmental policy in South Africa
South Africa’s environmental diplomacy has thus been characterised by a prevailing focus on large-scale meetings and summits. However, there has also been some activity in terms of policy-making processes and institutional changes in South Africa in recent years, belying the claim that South Africa’s environmental policy is nothing more than conference diplomacy. The overarching framework of South African environmental policy is defined in terms of sustainable development, based around the commitments made in Johannesburg in 2002 and dovetailing with the broader policy commitments to development, poverty eradication and the ending of Africa’s international marginalisation. 93 According to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) in 2004, ‘South Africa’s position is to view climate change response as offering just one specific avenue of opportunity for achieving the sustainable development objectives of the national policies and legislation that are concerned with both development and environment issues’. 94 Environmental and conservation policies in South Africa are therefore framed in terms of sustainable development and poverty eradication, with instruments such as the Clean Development Mechanism projects accorded a high priority. 95 Overall, government officials have made the case that in terms of climate change, ‘being seen to be taking a leading role amongst the ranks of the developing countries could considerably enhance South Africa’s standing in the international community’. 96
South Africa’s climate change policy was formally initiated by the ratification of the UNFCCC in 1997, and the Kyoto Protocol was ratified just weeks before the Johannesburg Summit in July 2002 – timed to generate maximum publicity and diplomatic leverage. 97 Despite these commitments, the issue of climate change has never been particularly prominent in South African domestic politics, and arguably continues to lack political saliency and broader popular appeal. 98 There is no high-level political champion, media coverage is limited, and issues of poverty reduction and service delivery are far greater domestic political priorities. This is a reflection of a broader context in which environmental issues have tended to be seen by most of the population as still tainted by association with racist, white, middle- and upper-class apartheid-era conservation policies. 99 Analysis of the 2005 South African Social Attitudes Survey concluded that ‘collective action in the name of environmentalism in South Africa is lacking’. 100 Interviewees were asked whether people generally worry too much about the future of the environment and not enough about jobs, and almost half (49.3 per cent) of South Africans agreed with this statement. 101
Given this low status of environmental issues in the country, it was unsurprising that in the lead-up to the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009 the head of the South African delegation was the relatively unknown Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica (subsequently replaced by Edna Molewa in the 2010 cabinet reshuffle), and for a while it was not clear whether President Zuma would even attend. However, three factors mitigate this lack of high-level or broadly popular interest in climate change. There is a proactive and experienced corps of officials with an interest in and knowledge of climate change debates within the current Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and in some municipal authorities (notably Cape Town and Durban); there is a relatively large, experienced and internationally respected scientific community working on environmental issues; and there is a vocal environmental lobby in civil society with a keen interest in climate change and links to transnational climate activist networks. 102 These groups have ensured some level of attention to climate change in policy, research and activist circles between major summits.
South African published its first climate change communication to the UNFCCC in 2000, and in 2004 DEAT announced the National Climate Change Response Strategy, which acknowledged the importance of the issue for South Africa, in terms of both the potential impacts on the country’s climate and the potential for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies to catalyse sustainable development. Given southern Africa’s vulnerability to climatic changes, policy-makers in South Africa were aware that ‘we needed a climate solution, and it was in our interests to engage in getting one that worked’. 103 The 2004 strategy highlighted ‘the health sector, maize production, plant and animal biodiversity, water resources, and rangelands as areas of highest vulnerability to climate change’. 104 It argued repeatedly that pursuing a national strategy for sustainable development was in the national interest, as appropriate actions could boost economic and social development, as well as contributing to poverty alleviation and job creation. The strategy also recognised that figures for emissions intensity and emissions per capita put South Africa as one of the world’s top 15 most energy-intensive economies, and that while non-Annex-I countries were not required to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, there ‘could be benefits to be derived from adopting a future strategy that is designed to move the economy towards a cleaner development path’. 105 DEAT acknowledged that ‘officials in other departments, within all spheres of government, often do not see climate change as a priority and some even see it as working against national development priorities’, but called for greater cross-departmental communication, and cited emissions intensity reduction programmes by the Department for Minerals and Energy. 106 The strategy went on to recommend long-term shifts in the national economic/industrial base and in macro-economic strategies, but recognised that these lay outside the scope of both the document and DEAT’s departmental mandate. 107
This strategy has been followed up by sustained policy deliberation, consultation and some tentative signs of long-term policy shifts. There was a national conference on climate change in 2005, involving over 600 representatives from business, science, government and civil society, which resolved ‘that South Africa will accept its responsibility to address climate change and will mobilise different economic sectors to meet this challenge’. 108 Even quite critical civil society groups such as the South African Climate Action Network (SACAN) noted that they ‘particularly welcomed this process of consultation and [see] this as the beginning of a more coherent approach to developing national policy’. 109 Discussions in 2005 eventually led to a government team being assembled and mandated to produce a Long-Term Mitigation Scenario exploring different development paths for South Africa, a process which has attracted much interest nationally and internationally. 110 There was a resolution on climate change at the historic 2007 ANC conference in Polokwane, and a national Climate Change Summit in March 2009. The Department of Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Plan 2008–11 lists climate change as ‘a major challenge with which South Africa is actively engaged’, and also stresses the importance of follow-up to major summits and conferences such as Johannesburg, its commitments under multilateral environmental agreements, and the challenges of energy security and sustainable development in Africa. 111 In 2010 the second national communication on climate change was published, comprising over 200 pages of research on mitigation and adaptation issues and noting that ‘the South African government recognises that it must make the transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy and society’. 112 A National Climate Change Response green paper was also released by DEA in 2010, inviting comments from the public prior to a white paper in 2011.
Moreover, although President Zuma could hardly be described a champion for climate change, he did speak at UN Secretary-General’s High Level Summit on Climate Change, on 22 September 2009 in New York, where he stated that ‘our goal should be to significantly reduce emissions across the globe without constraining development in the countries of the South’. 113 He also referred to climate change in the 2010 Presidential State of the Nation address, in which he promised to work with international counterparts towards a legally binding treaty, and noted that ‘we have voluntarily committed ourselves to specific emission reduction targets, and will continue working on our long-term climate change mitigation strategy’. 114 The announcement of a jobs-focused ‘New Growth Path’ in South African economic policy in November 2010 included a target of 300,000 new jobs in the ‘green economy’ by 2020. 115 These examples all suggest that climate change specifically, and environmental issues more broadly, are increasingly acknowledged as potentially significant factors within South African economic, development and foreign policy.
Leader or laggard? Environmental politics in South Africa
To what degree do such rhetorical commitments actually translate into making environmental sustainability a serious driver of government policies, however? The previous sections have argued that environmental politics, and particularly climate change, are issue areas in which South Africa is attempting to recapture some of its post-1994 foreign policy lustre, and to play a leading role in international politics. However, as the following discussion makes clear, there are many criticisms of South Africa’s domestic environmental record and policies, as well as broader issues regarding South Africa’s foreign policy that pose obstacles to a strong leading role for South Africa in this field.
As noted above, ‘environmental issues’ have a relatively low status in South African political and popular discourse. Despite the widely acknowledged view that South Africa’s natural environment is one of its greatest tourism assets, government development policy is not characterised by a strong environmentally sustainable outlook. South Africa relies heavily on a cheap and profligate coal-fired power sector, and the economy is driven by energy-intensive and environmentally damaging industrial and mining sectors. 116 Coal accounts for 75 per cent of the country’s primary energy supply, and over 90 per cent of electricity generation. 117 Recent crises in electricity supply from the parastatal utility Eskom have led to power shortages, at the same time as the company is seeking to expand its grip over continental energy markets. 118 Solutions to the power shortages include two major new Eskom coal-fired power stations at Medupi, near Johannesburg, and Kusile, in Mpumalanga. The Medupi plant would emit 25–30 million tonnes of CO2 per year, and has accordingly been a target for critics, with even the USA, the Netherlands and the UK refusing to support the World Bank-funded project, and the Kusile plant is even larger – forecast to be the world’s largest coal-fired power plant according to some calculations when it is completed in 2017. 119 Alternatives include long-running off-and-on plans to expand South Africa’s nuclear power industry, which have proved just as controversial with local communities and environmental activists. 120
Furthermore, widely acknowledged problems of air quality, water supply, urban infrastructure, housing and land degradation in South Africa have scarcely improved, or have worsened since 1994, such that the country is ranked 115 out of 163 states in the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). 121 South Africa is in the top 20 countries globally for CO2 emissions, and per capita and per dollar emissions figures are well above those of similar economies. 122 Commentators report that South Africa’s sustainability policy is characterised by a ‘weak ecological modernisation’ pathway, with an ‘implementation deficit’ that further hinders reform. 123 These are all features of a national macro-economic strategy which has been consistently directed toward achieving higher levels of gross economic growth and consumption, encapsulated in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy of 1996 and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) of 2006, which pay little, if any, attention to issues of environmental sustainability. Such policy orientations, together with the structure of South Africa’s energy industry, make it hard to see how stated commitments to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions growth by 34 per cent by 2020, or the best recommendations of the Long-Term Mitigation Scenario, could be achieved. 124
Overall, South Africa’s environmental policies and statements seem characterised by an exceptionally successful global performance, underpinned by a questionable domestic political commitment. There is a degree of opportunism about the focus on environmental summits and conferences, which is moreover combined with a neoliberal orientation towards ascribing environmental responsibility to markets, consumers and citizens, rather than the state. The National Climate Change Response Strategy, for example, concluded on the note that ‘it must be clearly understood that government alone cannot carry out the tasks identified in this document. Success will only be achieved through the total involvement of the private and nongovernmental sectors.’ 125 Such a focus on the role of a responsible and proactive citizenry is entirely typical of South Africa’s environmental policy stance. At the civil society forum in Johannesburg the ANC proclaimed: ‘Another world is possible. But the progressive transformation of global society requires the existence of a progressive movement … a democratic and popular movement that mobilises the poor and working people of the world’. 126 In this respect, Patrick Bond’s claim that the ANC realised at the Johannesburg Summit ‘the threat now posed by an active, empowered civil society’ is somewhat misleading; 127 in many ways the rationality of leadership that has characterised South African environmental policy is dependent upon producing an active, empowered civil society, inspired by the example of government – as long as it is a civil society that conducts itself in a ‘responsible’ and ‘positive’ manner. Civil society groups which refused to conduct themselves in a responsible, consensual and cooperative manner in 2002 – such as the Landless People’s Movement, the Social Movements Indaba, and the Anti-Privatisation Forum – were systematically marginalised, discredited and criminalised. 128 Such a rationality of leadership has been described here as one of leadership by example.
In part, of course, such a rationality of government can be empowering. It also might be a plausible way of tackling environmental problems and unsustainable development. Yet it has certain dangers, not least in terms of producing certain legitimate and responsible forms of conduct, and de-legitimising others. It also tends to shift focus away from structural and social constraints, and toward individual citizens and consumers. 129 As an example of the dangers of this political rationality, Gibson et al. conclude, after discussing various environmental governance programmes, that ‘the ultimate success of these initiatives will, however, depend on every South African making more informed choices such as water and electricity and when purchasing consumer products’. 130 Such a statement rather neglects the fact that many of South Africa’s citizens are not free to make sustainable choices about where their water and electricity come from. Similarly, when pressed about the ANC’s wavering commitments on climate change, former Environment Minister Valli Moosa ‘insisted on the ruling party’s longstanding commitment to addressing climate change and said ordinary South Africans are more to blame than government for not getting heated about global warming’. 131 By passing the burden of action onto individual citizens, the South African government is attempting to transfer some of the responsibility for structural power relations and unsustainable development paths from the state to the individual.
Conclusions
South Africa has become an increasingly prominent actor in global environmental diplomacy. Whether taking a leading role in the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, hosting the crucial COP17 meeting in Durban in 2011, or receiving World Bank funding to build one of the largest new coal-fired power stations in the world, South Africa’s visibility is increasingly inescapable. This should be understood within the broader context of South African post-apartheid foreign policy, which has been driven by the challenges of identity-building and nation-branding. Environmental politics is an emerging arena of foreign policy in which South Africa is attempting to rebrand and promote itself as an exceptional and inspirational leader.
There are a number of potential concerns raised by this increasing prominence. South African leadership in the global sphere has not been accompanied by any indication that the fundamental direction of domestic economic or energy policy is likely to change dramatically – whatever the pronouncements from the Department of Environmental Affairs. Major new coal power stations, a neoliberal growth-orientated macro-economic strategy, and worsening environmental quality as evidenced by the EPI all suggest that the performance of South African leadership might be more convincing in the international arena than among domestic audiences. Indeed, this has been a frequently observed aspect of South African foreign policy: Chris Alden and Garth le Pere have observed that South Africa’s success in claiming to represent and lead the continent is always more plausible on global stages and among groups like the G8, G20 and within the WTO, than it is within Africa. 132 They also argue that the lack of ‘fungibility’ of South African military and economic power away from its own borders, broader African scepticism towards institutions and policies like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Renaissance, as well as the growing tide of political protest and dissent within South Africa itself, all undermine Pretoria’s ability to play the role of continental leader. 133 Echoing Cornelissen’s conclusion on South African participation within the UN, therefore, South African environmental policy could well be seen, at least in part, as ‘an over-ambitious policy offset by a less than adequate level of political support and often diplomatic miscalculation’. 134
It is as yet unclear whether this growing South African enthusiasm for environmental diplomacy is anything more than opportunism. Environmental diplomacy has clear attractions for ‘Brand South Africa’ in terms of positioning the country as a clean, green, responsible, proactive and enthusiastic member of international society, and there are signs that this emerging identity will continue to be strengthened. On the other hand, there are also substantial doubts over how convincing or sustained this performance will be in the medium to long term, and what its implications will be for South Africa’s environment and its citizens.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to all the interviewees who were extremely generous with their time and considered opinions, as well as to participants on the 2010 ISA panel ‘African Environmental Challenges’. The thoughtful comments and advice from the anonymous reviewers and Ken Booth are also gratefully acknowledged.