- South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, has signed into law the Climate Change Bill which sets out a national climate change response, including mitigation and adaptation actions, which also constitutes South Africa’s fair contribution to the global climate change response.
The Climate Change Act, as endorsed by the President, enables the alignment of policies that influence South Africa’s climate change response, to ensure that South Africa’s transition to a low carbon and climate resilient economy and society is not constrained by policy contradictions.
The law also sets out to enhance South Africa’s ability and capacity over time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build climate resilience, while reducing the risk of job losses, and promoting opportunities for new job opportunities in the emerging green economy.
The Act has the aim of strengthening co-ordination between national sector departments and provide policy setting and decision-making to enable South Africa to meet the commitments in Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.
The National Determined Contribution is a set of commitments South Africa has made under the international Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse greenhouse emissions as part of climate change mitigation. South Africa is one of more than 190 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change who are parties to the eight-year-old Paris Agreement.
The Bill sets out to ensure that the climate actions are facilitated and coordinated across spheres of government. It establishes Provincial Forums on Climate Change and Municipal Forums on Climate Change, which will be integrated into current institutions and planning processes. It provides for the development of provincial and municipal climate change needs and response assessments, and corresponding climate change response implementation plans.
The Bill places the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) on a formal footing as an independent organ of state to provide advisory on matters of just transition. The PCC will continue to be headed by the President, which sends a strong signal of South Africa’s commitment to addressing the complex challenges of responding to climate change and the urgency with which this needs to be achieved.
The Bill provides clear frameworks for mitigation, adaptation and a mechanism to support and finance the country’s climate change response.
On mitigation, the Bill provides for a just transition away from our current carbon-intensive energy system and towards a decarbonized economy and society, while meeting our critical development challenges. To achieve this, the Bill formalizes our Greenhouse Gas Inventory, to strengthen the evidence base for further climate action, and our current reporting processes. The Bill also provides for the development of a long-term national greenhouse gas emissions trajectory and its review from time to time, and establishes a clear legal basis for allocating sectoral emissions targets to relevant sectors, and carbon budgets to large emitters.
On adaptation, the Bill provides for the establishment of national adaptation objectives, the development of climate scenarios to assess vulnerabilities, and a National Adaptation Strategy and Plan to manage adaptation in a clear and coordinated manner.
The Bill also provides the mechanisms to support and finance the climate change response, providing guidance and a governance framework to promote planning and implementation by national, provincial and local government. This will provide much-needed support to expedite our climate change response, thus climate-proofing our society and economy.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
