South Africa, which is among the worst 20 greenhouse-gas emitters globally, will be merely blowing hot air when it joins 140 other countries to sign a landmark agreement to limit climate change on Earth Day tomorrow.That's according to local environmentalists who yesterday added their voices to widespread criticism of the signing of the UN's landmark Paris Agreement, drafted in the French capital last year. The agreement is meant to limit the increase in global temperatures attributable to climate-change to below 2C.Environmentalists believe the signing would bring governments one step closer to ratifying a "meaningless" agreement."Environmental justice" organisation groundWork said the agreement - which requires its signatories to keep inventories of their greenhouse-gas emissions, and submit climate action plans and update them every five years - was a sham.Critics warn that emission targets are too low, that the rate of implementation of corrective measures is too slow, that there are no specific penalties for non-compliance and there is no start date.Bobby Peek, a groundWork director, said the South African government planned to sign the agreement while pushing ahead with the development of coal-based energy generation, fracking, offshore gas exploitation and building nuclear power stations."This is completely incompatible with trying to stop climate change."Centre for Environmental Rights attorney Nicole Löser said government decisions on energy and mining, and its international commitments and national climate-change policy, were largely incompatible.She said that although the Paris agreement failed to provide strict or enforceable obligations for countering global warming, South Africa's accession to the Paris Agreement could lead to the stricter regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions and other climate change factors in this country.In response to the criticism, Environmental Affairs Department spokesman Albi Modise said the agreement was important for South Africa."If not addressed, long-term climate change will not only undermine the development gains South Africa has made but will, potentially set us on a downward spiral of increasing poverty, unemployment and inequality," he said."Over 75% of South Africa's [greenhouse gas] emissions come from the energy sector, primarily electricity generation and the combustion of fuels in the transport and industrial sectors."..