COP25: Federal Minister for the Environment Svenja Schulze on COBENEFITS

In addi­tion to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, there are many oth­er good argu­ments for opt­ing against coal and for renew­able ener­gies: That’s what Sven­ja Schulze, Fed­er­al Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty, point­ed out in a press brief­ing on Just Tran­si­tion at COP25 in Madrid on Decem­ber 12, 2019. Sven­ja Schulze and her team, includ­ing Karsten Sach, Direc­tor Inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean Pol­i­cy at BMU, high­light­ed the remark­able social and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties of decar­boniz­ing the pow­er sec­tor and referred to assess­ment results of the COBENEFITS project in South Africa.

By decar­bon­is­ing its pow­er sec­tor, South Africa could save up to USD 10 bil­lion in health costs until 2050 thanks to bet­ter air qual­i­ty. In the same time frame, more than 145,00 jobs could be cre­at­ed in the pow­er sec­tor and 30,000 peo­ple in mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties could ben­e­fit from access to edu­ca­tion pro­grammes through socioe­co­nom­ic devel­op­ment (SED) schemes. South African house­holds could save up to USD 890,000,000 annu­al­ly with solar PV self-consumption.

The COBENEFITS project is part of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI). The Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMU) sup­ports this ini­tia­tive on the basis of a deci­sion adopt­ed by the Ger­man Bundestag.

Read more:

COP 25 Brief­ing: Co-Ben­e­fits for Just Ener­gy Futures in South Africa

bmu.de/meldung/cop-top-globaler-kohleausstieg-und-just-transition (Ger­man only)