Remarks By Director-General, Nomfundo Tshabalala, at the launch of the State of Climate Action in South Africa Report, The Forum, Johannesburg, 24 July 2024

Deputy Chairperson of the Presidential Climate Commission;
Commissioners Present;
Executive Director of the PCC;
Representative of different constituencies (BUSA, SALGA; UCT; Groundwork

Ladies and Gentlemen; 

It gives me great pleasure to receive this report entitled the State of Climate Action in South Africa. The report documents some of the notable impacts of climate change to the South African society at large and makes proposition for better coordination across government. 

It is pleasing to note that the launch of this report coincides with the signing into law of the Climate Change Bill by President Ramaphosa earlier this week, 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 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 Climate Change Act also sets out measures 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 new job opportunities in the emerging green economy.

It is indeed true, the climate change impacts have intensified and manifested through the frequencies of extreme events such as flooding, heatwaves, drought to motioned but few. These extreme events have increased in intensity and frequency, thus calling for concerted action across the spheres of society. 

The report points to fragmentation of strategic and technical responsibilities and calls for a more coherent and integrated response. The Climate Change Act, which are currently working towards its operationalization will ensure integrated and coherent climate change response in the Country. In this regard, we call on all of you gathered here to collaborate with government in its effort to ensure implementation of the coordinated climate change response in the Country.

The State of Climate Action Report underscores that the Just Transition is central to South Africa’s response to climate change, which puts the lives and livelihoods of people at the heart of its climate response to ensure that the most vulnerable and impacted are protected, supported, and empowered in the transition. Indeed, a just transition to a low-carbon economy will make South Africa’s economy more resilient and strengthen the country’s global competitiveness, which will create opportunities to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment. 

The report further points to the limited investment from both the public and private sector for the implementation of climate change response. We are well aware that climate change has the potential to reverse the developmental gains achieved thus far in the country, as such collaboration and strategic partnerships with the civil society, academia, business, labour in responding to climate change.

South Africa needs access to scaled-up, new, additional and predictable, fit for purpose finance, specifically grant and concessional finance that can be deployed effectively to create enabling environments for rapid investments by buying down risks and create new asset classes for clean investments that would allow for more significant mobilization and leveraging of public and private finance.

To respond in a holistic manner to the threats posed by Climate Change, President Ramaphosa announced in his State of the Nation Address in February 2024, the establishment of the Climate Change Response Fund (CCRF) that will bring together all spheres of government and the private sector. By coordinating financial mobilisation from both government and the private sector through the Fund, South Africa will leverage on collaborative efforts to build resilience and respond to climate change.

This report will contribute towards our reporting processes to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as we are currently in the process of developing the Country’s Biennial Transparency Report (BTR). The BTR of South Africa will be submitted to the UNFCCC by 31 December 2024, in line with the Paris Agreement rulebook.

As you may be aware, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment published the Sectoral Emission Targets (SETs) for public comments. The SETs are the main instruments for the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and are informed by sectoral Policies and Measures. This ensures that climate change mitigation is mainstreamed within government planning processes and its related performance monitoring processes.

South Africa has a sophisticated greenhouse gas emissions monitoring systems that has helped to shape the form of the Carbon Tax system that we have today.  Work is underway to ensure that our national emissions monitoring system also incorporates the tracking of carbon budgets and mitigation plans to be allocated industry as per the Climate Change Act. The report will further contribute to the Monitoring and Evaluation of South Africa’s efforts towards addressing climate change.

In conclusion, we welcome the release of the State of the Climate Action report, which provides a critical assessment of our collective progress towards addressing the climate crisis. This report serves as a vital tool for understanding the effectiveness of our current efforts and identifying areas for improvement. We commit to using the insights and recommendations from this report to inform the scaling up of our actions.

Thank You.

For media enquiries, contact:
Peter Mbelengwa 
Cell: 082 611 8197 
E-mail: pmbelengwa@dffe.gov.za