Mokoena launches "Wear Green Friday" campaign to raise awareness around climate change

22 November 2011

Mpumalanga’s MEC for Economic Development, Environment and Tourism, Mr Norman Mokoena says climate change, if unmitigated, would have terrible consequences for future generations. MEC Mokoena said this on Friday, 25 November 2011 when he was launching the ‘Wear Green Friday’ Campaign at the Nelspruit bus rank.

“Our aim through the ‘Wear Green Friday’ Campaign is to raise awareness around climate change, its impact, and to encourage our people to play a part in saving our environment. As you are aware, the colour green symbolizes the environment, hence we ask our people to wear anything green on Fridays – as a symbol of their commitment towards preservation of our environment,” explained MEC Mokoena.

The ‘Wear Green Friday’ Campaign is the national initiative, in the run up to United Nations’ COP17 (17th Conference of Parties) on Climate Change taking place in Durban from Monday, 28 November until 09 December 2011.

“We believe that Working Together, we can Save Tomorrow Today for the benefit of future generations. This is our mandate as enshrined in chapter 2 section 24 on the Bill of Rights of our country’s progressive Constitution, added Mokoena.

“We owe it to future generations to protect our environmental assets and natural resources, which provide ecosystem goods and services we rely on for our own existence. It is our only source of life in the form of the air we breathe; it is our only source of energy in the form of the food chain,” concluded the MEC. 

The launch of the ‘Wear Green Friday’ Campaign was done in partnership with Nedbank.

On Thursday, 24 November 2011, MEC Mokoena also addressed the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature during a debate on climate change in the run up to COP17, where he urged members to play their part in raising awareness around this unfortunate world phenomenon.

“Each one of us can contribute by doing basics such as switching lights or appliances in your homes when not in use or adopting what we termed the three R’s – Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. In this way, we will help to conserve energy, reduce pollution and greenhouse gases emissions which contribute significantly towards climate change and global warming,” echoed Mokoena.

He added that climate change poses serious threat to sustainable development, if action is not taken now to mitigate its effects. If unmitigated, climate change has the potential to undo or undermine many of the positive advances made in meeting South Africa’s own development goals and the Millennium Development Goals.

MEC Mokoena concluded by indicating that the crafting of the Provincial Climate Change Response Strategy, which will be done in line with the National Climate Change Response White Paper, will be concluded by the end of March 2012.

The two main objectives of the proposed Provincial Strategy are:

• To effectively manage the inevitable climate change impacts through interventions that build and sustain social, economic and environmental resilience and emergency response capacity; and
• To make a fair contribution to the global effort to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere within a timeframe that enables economic, social and environmental development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism,

Contact Person: Mohau Ramodibe @ 013 766 4271/ 082 771 9950/ mohauram@mpg.gov.za

For Media enquiries: Comfort Ngobe @ 013 766 4486/ 072 167 6149/ sngobe@mpg.gov.za

Issued by the Communication Directorate, Mpumalanga Provincial Government

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