A NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR SOUTH AFRICA

The report outlines South Africa's strategy to address climate change, emphasizing the need to balance environmental response with national priorities like poverty alleviation and job creation. It identifies high-vulnerability sectors—including health, water resources, and agriculture—and proposes adaptation measures such as improved water management and the development of drought-resistant crops. For mitigation, the strategy focuses on diversifying the energy economy away from coal, promoting renewable energy, and utilizing the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The document advocates for a coordinated inter-departmental approach, enhanced public awareness, and the integration of greenhouse gas monitoring into national air quality legislation.

• South Africa is identified as one of the world's top 15 most energy intensive economies, with a high dependency on fossil fuels and a significant contribution to greenhouse emissions at a continental level.
• The South African Country Studies Programme identified the health sector, maize production, plant and animal biodiversity, water resources, and rangelands as the areas of highest vulnerability to climate change.
• Climate change is projected to cause a broad reduction of summer rainfall in South Africa by 5% to 10%, alongside an increase in the frequency of both droughts and floods.
• The South African economy is highly vulnerable to mitigation measures implemented by developed (annex 1) countries due to its heavy reliance on income from coal production, processing, export, and consumption.
• The government aims to move toward a less carbon-intensive energy economy, including a target of 10,000 GWh of additional renewable energy contribution to final energy consumption by 2012.
• The strategy proposes using the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol to attract foreign direct investment and support national trade and investment measures.
• The transport sector is the most rapidly growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in South Africa, accounting for approximately 19% of total emissions in 2000.
• The strategy recommends integrating greenhouse gas emissions and inventories into the impending National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act and establishing a national information handling system.
• Adaptation in the agricultural sector should include diversifying crops, developing heat and drought-resistant cultivars, and reducing reliance on industrialised mono-cropping to maintain food security.
• The document argues that climate change response should be viewed as a vehicle to redress the historic and inequitable north/south divide of the world's economy and prosperity.

APA

Centre for Environmental Rights (2004). A NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR SOUTH AFRICA. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/sem_sup3_south_africa.pdf?x21779

Chicago

Centre for Environmental Rights. A NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR SOUTH AFRICA. 2004. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/sem_sup3_south_africa.pdf?x21779.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Centre for Environmental Rights |title=A NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR SOUTH AFRICA |date=September 2004 |url=https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/sem_sup3_south_africa.pdf?x21779 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centreforenvironmentalrights2004national, author = {{Centre for Environmental Rights}}, title = {{A NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR SOUTH AFRICA}}, institution = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, year = {2004}, month = sep, url = {https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/sem_sup3_south_africa.pdf?x21779}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }