BuaNews (Tshwane)
Shaun Benton
7 October 2007
Cape Town — German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the potentially catastrophic spectre of a dramatic rise in the earth's temperature, while on a visit to the BIOTA research station at Cape Point, Saturday.
She said that a rise in global temperature of seven-degrees Celsius was a possibility by the end of this century and that South Africa and its peers on the continent would likely be hit harder by climate change than Europe.
Ms Merkel said that climate change "is a reality", adding that the effects of it were less visible in Germany than in South Africa.
The Chancellor added that scientists expect the temperature to rise seven degrees or higher in the future, adding that it was important for the region, Southern Africa, to support biodiversity and to do something about climate change.
Adaptation to climate change was important for countries such as South Africa that are expected to be most hard hit by it, Ms Merkel added, reinforcing the views of many leading scientists in the field.
She was speaking during a briefing on the Biodiversity Monitoring Transect Analysis in Africa (BIOTA) project at Cape Point by its chair, Professor Norbert Jürgens, a botanist who divides his time between the University of Hamburg and the South African National Biodiversity Institute at Kirstenbosch National Botanical gardens in Cape Town.
BIOTA Southern Africa conducts biodiversity research along the rainfall gradient between the Cape region and northern Namibia, with the aim of providing adequate data to develop a scientific approach for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of biodiversity in southern Africa.
Professor Jürgens told BuaNews that BIOTA Southern Africa - a multi- and interdisciplinary project that includes climatology - has been running for the past six years, supported last year by a Euro 2.7 million (R26 million) grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research - along with R4 million this year from the South African government.
So successful is the BIOTA Southern Africa project, said Professor Jürgens, that it is being considered as a potential global model that can serve as an observation system that can serve as an early warning system for climate change.
The professor added that South Africa will shortly be hosting the next ministerial meeting of the Global Earth Observation System (GEOS) and by hosting this would be placing itself in an important role in terms of the worldwide and African approaches to the threat of climate change.
"You can't mitigate climate change in South Africa because the main drivers of climate change are the industrialised countries burning lots of carbon dioxide, so in South Africa and other African countries you only have the chance to suffer climate change," he said.
Southern Africa can only plan for the effects of climate change around areas such as local land use and by adaptation - "making the damage a bit softer" - he said.
On the second full day of her visit to South Africa and in the first visit to Cape Town by a German chancellor in more than 10 years, Ms Merkel appeared relaxed as she enjoyed the view of the two oceans from Cape Point.
Ms Merkel chatted with several surprised visitors to Cape Town's major tourist attraction, including a young German student studying in South Africa, and she posed for photographs with a group of excited Chinese tourists.
Later, the Chancellor went to Cape Town's Tygerberg Hospital to visit a project by a non-governmental organisation working to care for HIV and AIDS patients.
The project, HIV Outreach Programme and Education (HOPE), led by a German priest, Stefan Hippler, cares for HIV-positive children and their families in a ward in the hospital provided to it by the Western Cape government.
Accompanied by Germany's Development Aid Minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Ms Merkel presented a family with a few small gifts and asked - according to a German consular official - a question about the potential role of traditional healers or sangomas in the education of people about HIV and AIDS.
BuaNews was told that during the visit to Tygerberg on Saturday, Ms Wieczorek-Zeul invited Mr Hippler to visit her ministry in Berlin.
According to a press officer with the German consulate in Cape Town, the Chancellor was then scheduled to hold talks with Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, followed by a meeting with Cape Town Mayor, Helen Zille.
Earlier on Saturday, Ms Merkel and Ms Wieczorek-Zeul met Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, during which the Development Aid minister pledged a donation of Euro 2.5 million to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which contributes to the battle against HIV and AIDS.
On Friday, Ms Merkel held talks with President Thabo Mbeki, who described South Africa's relations with Germany as "very strong ... in all areas" and which are valued "very much" by South Africa.
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