Climate Change Act and the role of local government

The document examines the 2024 Climate Change Act in South Africa, highlighting the critical role of local governments as front-end responders to climate impacts. It identifies significant barriers to implementation, including poor financial management, administrative capacity constraints, and a disconnect between political governance and the economy. To address these, the author recommends professionalising the public service through the Public Service Commission and strengthening the use of the Local Government Climate Change Support Programme to ensure municipalities can meet their legal mandate of submitting climate response assessments every five years.

• South Africa is experiencing a warming trend of approximately 0.2°C per decade, leading to extreme heat, drought, sea level rise, and flooding that devastate livelihoods and socio-economic development.
• The Climate Change Act (Act No. 22 of 2024) mandates that metropolitan and district municipalities review, amend, and submit climate change needs and context-specific response assessments and implementation plans every five years.
• Local government capacity is severely constrained by poor financial management; in the 2022-2023 audit results, R241.1 billion in unauthorised expenditure was revealed, and only 34 out of 257 municipalities received clean audits.
• Effective implementation of the Act requires the professionalisation of the public service, with the Public Service Commission (PSC) leading efforts to appoint technical experts and provide phased implementation timelines.
• The Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) identifies that while municipalities are the primary responders to climate impacts, they are hindered by resource constraints, structural issues, and corrupt financial and administrative management.

APA

Siyobi, B. (2024). Climate Change Act and the role of local government. Good Governance Africa. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/11/Climate-Change-PB.pdf

Chicago

Siyobi, Busisipho. Climate Change Act and the role of local government. Good Governance Africa, 2024. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/11/Climate-Change-PB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Siyobi |first1=Busisipho |title=Climate Change Act and the role of local government |publisher=Good Governance Africa |date=November 2024 |url=https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/11/Climate-Change-PB.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{siyobi2024climate, author = {Siyobi, Busisipho}, title = {{Climate Change Act and the role of local government}}, institution = {Good Governance Africa}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/11/Climate-Change-PB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }