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Sustainable Growth

Natural capital, that is the stock of renewable and non-renewable resources used for production, is crucial for growth and development. Revenues from natural resource extraction can be a driver for growth, or an impediment, for example the rising cost of imported oil. Preserving ecological systems and landscape matters economically, underpinning industries, such as agriculture and tourism, and livelihoods. TIPS works in a number of areas related to the green economy, including the economic dimensions of climate change and low-carbon energy, and the growth of green industries as a driver for industrialisation and job creation.

The importance of the role of the environment as generating a stream of services is explicitly recognised in South Africa. This recognises that the preservation of ecological systems and landscape matters economically (e.g. directly to ensure that tourist revenues remain). Policy concerns are also increasingly around the quality of the ‘environment’ – that is with the quality of the broad environment shaping water quality (as well as access to water) and the spread and impact of diseases. Moreover, beyond environmental (including ecological) services, the fact that changes to and the exploitation of the full resource base have intra-generational outcomes is also starting to find a firmer place in policy thinking. Development options have thus to be considered over a long as well as over a short time horizon.

Some main research directions can be drawn around the way in which environmental sustainability is conceived. Specifically, a set of research, analyses and an engagement around issues which pertain to the local environment would need to be undertaken. This is the case for land and resource use and trade-offs as well as for the theme of resource depletion. A second main research direction is in terms of the global environment as guided by international efforts around climate change as a global externality. Moreover, TIPS recognises that, while climate change is a global problem, the interventions undertaken nationally and internationally to deal with it generate national changes (pro-actively or defensively) that will impact on South Africa’s partners. That is it will affect trade patterns and investments stocks and flows as well as industry structure and value chain dynamics. This characteristic has not yet been internalised by policymakers as climate change research is still largely away from socio-economic considerations. Instead, attention has been, in the region, towards sharing the knowledge and technologies being developed nationally as they are related to adaptation efforts.

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If you would like to receive the article in the Renewable Energy Law and Policy journal by Peet du Plooy, please send a request to Tanya Claassen via email: Tanya [at] tips [dot] org [dot] za / to Peet du Plooy on Peet [at] tips [dot] org [dot] za using Country Report, South Africa as your reference.

 

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Economic Regulation