A new report from the President's Climate Commission finds that progress is not being made at the pace or scale needed.
SSouth Africa has strong commitment and public support to tackling climate change and promoting a just energy transition, but progress is not being made at the pace and scale required to “tackle a crisis of this magnitude”.
That's the main conclusion of the first-ever climate action assessment by the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), which blames inconsistent policies, weak governance structures, insufficient funding and “inconsistent action” by governments and other partners as the main obstacles to progress.
The report said the country is already grappling with the effects of climate change, warning that “adverse climate impacts and risks are projected to increase rapidly through the late 2020s and into the next decade.”
Annual temperatures in South Africa have risen twice as fast as the global average since 1990, with a significant decrease in the number of rainy days, more intense rainfall and more dry spells. These observed changes have led to a number of extreme weather events, including droughts, floods and extreme heat.
The report found that 73% of households reported being affected in some way by extreme weather events in the past decade.
“Currently at 1.25°C above pre-industrial levels, these events have already caused enormous damage to infrastructure, ecosystems, lives and livelihoods, displacing thousands of people, and disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups, including women, youth, older people, the unemployed, historically marginalized groups and those living in informal settlements.”
The report notes that climate change is exacerbating the country's triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality, while health damage from pollution caused by fossil fuel burning takes a disproportionate toll on the poor, further exacerbating these inequalities.
Tackling climate change means strengthening adaptation measures to improve resilience to sudden events (extreme weather events and disasters) as well as long-term climate changes that affect water supplies, food security and human health. Adapting to a rapidly decarbonizing global economy also requires sustained deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The report said the scale of the crisis required an “effective and well-equipped state” that enables trust and action among all stakeholders, noting that South Africa has increasingly prioritised a just transition and “this agenda has been launched at a large scale over the past five years”.
A mismatch between commitment and action
Despite strong public support and policy commitments to climate action and advancing a just transition in South Africa, there is a gap between policy ambition and actual results, the report said, adding that the country is generally described as policy rich but implementation poor, and “this is no less true for climate action.”
Key factors behind this include contradictory public policies and positions, particularly regarding the future of the energy sector, with “governments grappling with urgent trade-offs between energy security, economic growth, the health impacts of fossil fuel pollution, and tackling climate change.”
The lack of agreement on the pace of phasing out coal-fired generation has delayed the implementation of necessary policy measures to prepare for and enable the transition, such as the Draft Integrated Resource Plan 2023, the Integrated Energy Plan and the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan.
The report finds that inadequate technical and financial capacity is constraining local governments' role as frontline responders to climate change and the just transition. More than 60 percent of local governments are classified as dysfunctional due to resource constraints, structural problems, poor governance, inefficient and “sometimes corrupt financial and administrative management,” and poor planning and service delivery.
These local governments will need to play a key role in implementing and managing adaptation projects to improve community resilience, such as disaster risk management strategies and early warning systems.
The third factor is limited investment in the Just Transition from public, private, international and domestic sources. Although finance flows to climate and just transition have increased significantly in recent years, they still fall short of the country's annual needs, especially for adaptation. Tracked annual climate finance reached an average of R131 billion per year from 2019 to 2021, a “record high”, but still far short of the average estimated annual need of R334 billion to R535 billion.
Climate resilience
The report says the country's vulnerability to climate change is steadily increasing, with projected changes in crop yields, low capacity to acquire and use agricultural technologies, existing water scarcity, and limited per capita dam storage capacity making the food and water sectors the most vulnerable to climate change.
Social inequalities, a relatively complex business environment, and declining state capacity have reduced the readiness to leverage public and private investment for adaptation activities.
The report said national policies and commitments set out a comprehensive approach to building resilience to climate change, but implementation has been “slow,” citing only 28 of the 95 actions outlined in national climate change adaptation strategies as having been fully implemented or being implemented.
The report said broader structural issues that are impeding progress on a just transition are also hindering progress on building climate resilience.
“Under existing policy frameworks, institutional authorities and responsibilities for addressing climate change are not always clear, and despite regular communication between at least some relevant government departments, coordination among actors is weak,” the report said.
Many city officials still tend to view building resilience to climate change as an add-on rather than a fundamental component of their core responsibilities, which hinders the implementation of city climate change plans and strategies. Limited city budgets also hinder the implementation of adaptation and resilience building efforts.
Funding for climate adaptation lags significantly behind funding for mitigation (12% compared to 88%), meaning that adaptation projects are unevenly distributed across South Africa, mainly concentrated in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
The race to reduce emissions
South Africa is the 14th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world and the largest on the African continent. Coal-based electricity production is the largest contributor to the country's emissions, accounting for more than half of the country's emissions.
The report said the country's greenhouse gas emissions increased in the 2000s, peaked in 2009, then declined in the 2010s. Emissions in 2022 are estimated to be 479 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2 e), excluding forestry and other land-use change, slightly below 2000 emissions.
As a party to the Paris Agreement, South Africa is committed to the global goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting temperature rise to well below 2°C, with every effort made to achieve 1.5°C. South Africa has set a target to reduce these emissions by 2030.
The country's revised Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) (emissions reduction effort) commits to limiting the country's greenhouse gas emissions to a range of 398-510 MtCO2 e in 2025 and 350-420 MtCO2 e in 2030.
“External analysis shows that the lower end of our 2030 mitigation target (i.e. 350 MtCO2 e) is broadly consistent with the global trajectory of limiting warming to 1.5°C. South Africa has also set an ambitious target of achieving net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 and aims to submit an updated NDC in 2025, in line with international agreements, and to set updated and strengthened targets for 2030 and 2035.”
The report said the enhanced emissions reduction target would be consistent with global imperatives to collectively reduce emissions, at a pace and scale that South Africa can afford, while maximising regional opportunities for a careful and planned transition.
South Africa is on track to meet its 2025 greenhouse gas emissions target, and the lower 2030 NDC target (350 MtCO2 e) “could potentially be achieved with more ambitious action in the power and transport sectors”.
Yet, if key policies such as the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, which includes prescribed electricity construction and retirement plans, are not met, the NDC 2030 target is likely to be missed.
“This is appropriate given Eskom's recent decision to further postpone the retirement of its three oldest coal-fired power stations (Camden, Grootevlei and Hendrina),” the report said.
