ENERGY ALTERNATIVES BY JESSIE TAYLOR
A R e ne w a b l e F u t u r e SOUTH AFRICA COMMITS TO SLASHING CARBON EMISSIONS – AHEAD OF TARGET
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resident Cyril Ramaphosa has announced new carbon emission target ranges that will see South Africa’s emissions decline a decade earlier than initially anticipated. The ambitious plan includes generating more than 17 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. President Ramaphosa unveiled the new plan to world leaders at US President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate. The Summit ran over two days, coinciding with Earth Day (22 April) and saw 40 world leaders gathering to discuss the effects of climate change. A New Strategy Our President told delegates that South Africa’s emissions would begin to fall by 2025, rather than peak and plateau that same year. According to the previous nationally determined contribution (NDC), South Africa’s emissions were expected to peak and plateau in 2025. They would then only start to decline from 2035.
However, Hon. Ramaphosa said at the conference, South Africa’s emissions will begin to decline from 2025. This will effectively move the country’s emissions decline forward by a decade.
South Africa is fully committed to enhancing its ambition and accelerating its climate actions The NDC is a commitment to reduce emissions and implement other climate change reduction efforts in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Paris Agreement, to which South Africa is a signatory. This document is currently being updated, following the Paris Agreement. Under the Agreement all parties are required to deposit NDCs every five years. South
30 | Public Sector Leaders | May 2021
Africa deposited its first NDC with the UNFCCC in October 2015, committing to keeping national greenhouse gas emissions within a range from 389 Mt CO2-eq for 2025 and 2050. The 2030 target range in the updated NDC (398 - 440 Mt CO2 e q) has been described as “an ambitious improvement” on the country’s previous NDC target, as the upper range of the proposed 2030 target range represents a 28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 2015 NDC targets. In 2020, South Africa finalised a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, to run alongside its Low Emissions Development Strategy. These will inform the country’s transition to a low-carbon, sustainable and climate-resilient development path. “South Africa is fully committed to enhancing its ambition and accelerating its climate actions,” - President Ramaphosa.
