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South Africa

Care About Climate

Core analysis by Precious Makaringe (Ambassador) - makaringeprecious@gmail.com and supported by Tyler Booth (Mentor) – tylerbooth38@gmail.com

Executive Summary

Highlights from South Africa NDC include:

·      Aligns to existing national development priorities, and cross-sectoral approach to governance,

·      Reduces emission targets however these are conservative and unambitious for 2021 to 2030,

·      Heavily reliant on international financial support,

·      Lacks a detailed implementation plan or vision,

·      Lack of gender-responsive climate policies or plans at the national level or significant gender integration into this NDC,

·      Fails to consider youth, indigenous knowledge, or civil society participation, inclusion, or involvement in the implementation of the NDC.

Recommendations for the South African government on NDC enhancement and implementation, to support the most ambitious climate action possible, are to:

·      Ambition could be enhanced through increasing renewable energy capacity further by 2030, removing coal-fired power generation latest 2040, and restricting the use of natural gas, and explore further mitigation measures in other industries,

·      Expand national and local climate financing opportunities,

·      Gender-mainstreaming and better inclusion of women in the planning, implementation, and monitoring process,

·      Support for women in high-level decision-making spaces,

·      Consider intersectional approaches to climate action and climate justice,

·      Meaningfully support and engage youth, indigenous people, and civil society in the implementation of the NDC,

What can civil society activists and young feminists do moving forward to advocate for NDC enhancement and implementation?

Young feminists should be at the forefront of climate change, decision-making, and policy implementation. The older generation of women is always willing to share and impart knowledge thus young activists should leverage this opportunity to better understand and implement indigenous knowledge systems to decrease the impacts of climate change and ensure the collaboration of all members of society. The participation of the youth is also vital as young people make up the majority of the population and the youth movement continues to grow.  Civil society activists and young feminists should create more awareness on the issues involving them that the NDC has missed.

 

NDC Analysis

Introduction

Climate Change has established itself as one of the most complex environmental and societal challenges and undermines any progress towards sustainable development. Significantly, a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions increases the impacts of climate change with affects predominantly determined by geographical location (Tripathi and Mishra, 2017). 

South Africa is not exempt from the impacts of climate change, and hosts vulnerabilities in the sectors of  water, energy, and food security. Importantly, these sectors have added consequences on human settlements, health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Studies have proven that human activities are a leading cause of climate change (SA talks climate, 2010). Therefore, both climate adaptation and mitigation measures are required to counteract the risks, impacts and damages of climate change (Jiang et al., 2017; Dang et al., 2019). 

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) introduced by The Paris Agreement provide a simultaneous way of addressing these two pillars of climate action alongside the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both international agreements provide a challenging task of aligning national climate commitments with global development goals. 

Observations of South Africa NDC

The NDC of South Africa is not assembled or organised according to different sectors or theme-specific. It is rather structured along with a wide range of economic actions and needs. According to Karlsen (2014), this allows countries to have a more flexible approach to their commitments. This cross-sectoral approach is in accordance with the recently adopted tactic by South Africa's government to institutionalise a "government cluster”. The aim was to encourage an integrated approach to governance that would improve government planning, decision-making, and service delivery (Mantlana et al., 2020). In contrast, most African countries NDC’s only address mitigation (Nhamo, 2018) while South Africa treats both the mitigation and adaptation agendas equally which is more comprehensive than merely focusing on mitigation (BASIC experts, 2011).

Due to insufficient international guidance and limited time to prepare Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), each country had to determine which information to detail in their INDC (Karlsen, 2014; Pauw & Mbeva, 2015). Owing to this, South Africa's INDC missed some very important aspects that are of national significance. Recently, South Africa released a proposed updated NDC, on which the majority of this analysis is founded upon.

Like the Paris Agreement, the first NDC of South Africa does not refer to the SDGs while the proposed updated NDC only mentions them in passing. The NDC of South Africa, really captures the country’s unique national circumstances, capacities, and capabilities exceptionally well and makes a distinguished connection and alignment to existing national development priorities and key national policies (Hammill & Price-Kelly, 2017).

Emissions and Equity

On the global warming scale, an increase of 2°C of the global average temperature will translate to 4°C for South Africa. Yet simultaneously, South Africa is the 14th largest greenhouse gas emitter and the largest on the continent. Therefore, the country will face dire consequences if more ambitious actions and targets are not pursued. Linking to the national Integrated Resources Plan 2019, ambition could be enhanced through increasing renewable energy capacity further by 2030, removing coal-fired power generation latest 2040, and restricting the use of natural gas (Climate Action Tracker, 2019).

South Africa is primarily dependent on coal as a source of energy and is currently facing energy challenges that led to the implementation of load shedding and load reduction. However, these energy challenges affect economic development. A concerning issue with the proposed updated NDC is that the South African government has identified the coal-based electricity sector as the main focus of deep decarbonisation. However, they are still heavily reliant on development founded on fossil fuels despite the a large proportion of the country's greenhouse gas emissions originating from the energy sector.

South Africa maintains the peak, plateau decline methodology, with emissions to peak between 2020 and 2025, then plateau for  up to 10 years after the peak and only from 2036 will they start to decline. While South Africa has volunteered to reduce their emission targets from their INDC to their updated NDC, they have decided on greenhouse gas emissions ranges that are conservative and largely unambitious for 2021 to 2030. In addition, as steeper emission reductions only occur after 2030, the question that lingers is will this be too little too late? Furthermore, this is despite the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calling for the world to have halved its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to have a strong opportunity of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Organisations such as the Climate Action Tracker and the Climate Equity Reference Project (CERP) have already criticised the proposed NDC. CERP fair share calculations indicate that SA’s fair share range on a 1.5°C pathway would be 274 -352 Mt CO2-eq if Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) are included compared to the presently projected 398 and 440 Mt CO2-eq (which also includes LULUCF). As a result, the updated NDC still does not fall in line with limiting global temperatures increases to below 1.5°C. However, the South African government contends that the proposed updated NDC plan falls within the target range.

Importantly, the implementation of South Africa’s NDC is subject to the provision of financial and technical support from international parties. In the context of common but differentiated responsibilities, developed countries need to provide sufficient financial and technical support to enable developing countries to take on significant emission reduction obligations, which to date has been lacking (Expert Group on Technology Transfer, 2010; Khor, 2012; Sharma, 2017).  While an equitable response to the global climate crises would need to be inclusive of unprecedented financial compensation from northern countries to developing countries, it still needs to be noted that South Africa is also a current major global emitter. In terms of ambition and climate action, SA needs to raise their ambition to ensure they can both attract international funding and expand national climate financing opportunities. In addition, there needs to be transparency and accountability of any finance agreements between South Africa and other countries.

Gender

Although climate change currently and will continue to affect all people to different extents, it is disproportionally detrimental to women, and specifically those from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. They are most susceptible to the impacts of climate change due to the insufficient resources and pre-existing social inequities. The proposed updated NDC of South Africa makes no mention to women, and only considers gender in the context of gender-responsive planning of the NDC process. The main goal of feminism is to counter and uncover the distinct oppression, inequality, and discrimination of women (Mcdowell, 1998). In failing to consider gender differences, the NDC is further weakened as recommendations do not account for the most vulnerable people of South Africa. Women cannot simply be added into the document as "another" category. Since women are the most susceptible to the effects of climate change, it is significant that they are equally represented and are equal agents, voices, and participants of the change. Engaging and involving women and further including gender-mainstreaming objectives in the planning, implementing and monitoring of the NDC will make women heard and issues relating to them visible within the NDC.

Studies reveal that women’s participation and how they participate is critical as their participation and involvement in politics and citizen mobilisation can positively benefit the environment with multiplier effects across the different development goals (UNDP, 2011). In spite of this, women are still inadequately represented in high-level climate negotiations (C40, 2019). A solution to this is supporting women’s access to high-level decision-making positions which can further assist in addressing the barriers to women’s involvement, participation, and contribution to climate action, inclusive of decision making, policy formulation, and implementation (UNFCCC, 2019).

The Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG) and its Gender Action Plan (GAP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) acknowledge the inequalities that limit the participation of women in climate policy and aims to integrate gender into the policies and strategies of climate change. Through this, they aim to increase the participation of women at a national and international level. Although, South Africa advocates for gender justice, there is still a disproportion representation of women at decision-making levels and a lack of gender-responsive climate policies at a national level.

Climate Justice and Equity

The legacy of colonial and apartheid rule continues to hold South Africa's development back (Shabalala, 2018). The exploitative political and economic implications of colonialism have shaped all facets of South African society from social structure and education, to economic opportunities and political will and leadership. Amidst these pre-existing social, economic and political barriers is the looming threat of environmental destruction and catastrophe that further exacerbates existing inequalities such as gender disparity and social injustice.

Another critical challenge, is that climate change is viewed as an environmental issue and is tackled peripherally. However, climate change will continue to undermine every aspect of life, as such should not be approached separately from how society and the economy works, it needs to be addressed from a holistic and intersectional environmental, social and economic lens. A deep systemic change is required to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are not shock absorbers of the detrimental impacts of climate change. Considering the importance of climate change adaptation and resilience to developing countries (Patouris, 2017), South Africa needs to use climate action as an opportunity to simultaneously tackle social equity and justice by prioritising policy implementation choices that benefit the country’s vulnerable and poor communities (Mantlana et al., 2020).

Youth

Similar to women, the youth is not mentioned in the NDC of South Africa. This is concerning because the youth is generally motivated and passionate about environmental, social, and economic justice. The contribution of young people to the NDC of South Africa cannot be emphasised enough because young people need to be centrally involved in the fight against climate change. It is also important to consider that climate change is an intergenerational justice issue as  youth and future generations are most vulnerable and will be greatly affected by its impacts. Although, The Department of Environmental, Forestry, and Fisheries (DEFF) recently launched the "Driving Force for Change" pilot youth funding initiative, this is still not sufficient to support youth engagement in climate action nor put the country on a path to a low carbon and climate-resilient economy. It is necessary that youth are active participants in the development, implementation and monitoring of the NDC.

Civil Society Inclusion

The proposed updated NDC only mentions civil society in the context of engagement with government and institutional structures set out in the Climate Change Bill. The Climate Change Bill was first released in 2018 for public comment, but is yet to be tabled in parliament for approval into an Act. The updated NDC highlights that one of the aims of the institutional structures set out in the Bill is to improve the coherence, coordination and implementation of adaptation responses across the governmental structures while further mandating them to engage research institutions, civil society, and business.

In April and May of 2021, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment lead a national and provincial consultation process on the proposed updated NDC with multiple stakeholders, including youth and civil society.  Through this consultation process, interest groups were allowed to engage government and further present written inputs towards the NDC, however engagements were limited to a virtual and limited in person format due to the social distancing restrictions of COVID-19. Questions and concerns have been raised about the accessibility of such engagements with the ongoing load-shedding, and lack of access to data and smart devices amongst the population, especially those from lower economic households who will experience the brunt of climate-related impacts.

Indigenous knowledge

Out of the 44 NDCs submitted by the African countries only nine of those mention Indigenous knowledge, unfortunately, South Africa does not. This is concerning because indigenous knowledge could help contribute to the action plan of South Africa. Furthermore, The African Development Bank (AFDB) NDC does not have an indigenous knowledge agenda in its activities to help African countries meet their NDC commitments. This needs to change at a regional scale as it will present an opportunity to hold countries accountable at a local scale. Additionally, the lack of a favourable legal framework, lack of documentation, and the disintegration of indigenous knowledge systems are among the challenges of incorporating traditional knowledge into climate change action plans.

Being the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, communities are realising the need to adapt to climate change. As a result, not only are they deploying existing local knowledge, but they are also testing their solutions through their innovation and "self-help" initiatives. This reality must be kept in mind, and the value of this indigenous and local knowledge must be considered and community members must be consulted as they have a better experience with their environment.

Recommendations for South Africa’s second NDC

Preparing for South Africa’s updated NDC provides the country an opportunity to systematically and strategically align its climate commitments to the SDGs. For instance, strategic alignment could mean indicating the synergies and formal coordination mechanisms between the two agendas (Montlana, 2020). Systematic alignment could mean indicating NDC commitments that offer a framework for achieving SDGs. Furthermore, where there are interlinkages between two agendas, the proposed updated NDC must at least cross-reference the relevant SDGs so that the government’s intention to invest in multiple agendas is made visible (Montlana, 2020).

At first, most developing countries were against the implementation of a strong transparency system under the UNFCCC and urged for domestic verification (Bodansky, 1993; Dubash, 2010). However, in 2009 transparency was one of the most controversial issues at the Copenhagen Climate Summit (Niederberger & Kimble, 2011). In 2015, political leaders across the globe embraced both the Paris Agreement and SDGs calling for a comprehensive data revolution and presently a monumental data gathering and analysis challenge, specifically in developing countries. Acknowledging the role of evidence-based decision-making and credible information in the development of Agendas is important, (Aldy, 2014; OʼBrien & Gowan, 2012; Schoenefeld, Hildén, & Jordan, 2018), as its recognition offers South Africa an opportunity to commit to investing in improving its data gathering, monitoring, and knowledge management systems (Mantlana et al., 2020).

In the ever-evolving global governance of climate change, the previous divisions between the state, the economy, and political-social-economic responsibility do not work anymore (Wood et al., 2018). By committing to effective public-private cooperation, including pinpointing and leveraging on common points of interest between the public and private sector, South Africa can better address these divisions. This would allow both the private and public sectors to work together towards a united goal and establish a climate-resilient nation (Pedersen, 2018; Scheyvens, Banks, & Hughes, 2016).

Conclusion

The implementation of the global climate agenda is significantly dependent on the strength of public institutions and fiscal capacities at both the national and sub-national levels. There is also an essential role for international cooperation through technical and financial support (Qureshi, 2016).  The NDC and SDGs are tools that the state can utilise to look beyond the short term and be used to focus policies beyond the present generation and national borders. Therefore, the proposed updated NDC needs to be strengthened to provide South Africa a strategic moment to commit to a long-term transnational and borderless climate and development response.  

 

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Authors

Precious Makaringe, South Africa NDC Ambassador: Precious Makaringe is a Geospatial Technician for an Architecture, Engineering, and Geospatial (AGV) firm in South Africa. She holds a BA Geography and Anthropology degree from the University of the Witwatersrand (2019) and B.Sc. Honours degree in Geo-Informatics and Strategic Environmental Planning from the University of Johannesburg (2020). She is passionate about advocating for environmental consciousness and sustainability, while also creating economic value for the country. Precious believes that the environmental industry is a dynamic and collaborative industry that allows for personal growth and development. In 2019 Precious served as the Chairperson for the School of Geography, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies (Wits University) and the Academic Officer at Sunnyside Hall of Residence (Wits University). In addition, she was elected as a finalist for the 2019 Young Researchers Symposium. This is where she cultivated her field experience in research writing, drafting policies, and how to thrive in her career.

Tyler Booth, South Africa NDC Mentor: Tyler Booth recently graduated with a BMedSci (Hons) from the University of Cape Town. In addition to her studies, she is a passionate climate and gender activist dedicated to bettering youth participation in policy processes. She was a lead drafter of the Joburg Youth Climate Action Plan (YCAP), the SA APRM Climate Change youth submission and a current project lead for the SA-YCAP process. In 2019, Tyler attended COP25 where she negotiated on the Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan. She is the current focal point for the Climate Change Youth Policy Committee, and further represents the group as the South African representative to the We Are Tomorrow Global Partnership.