All levels of government, in partnership with the rest of society, are required by the Act to make a contribution to the global fight against climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is called “mitigation”. Many of the activities that fall within sub-national governments’ mandates can contribute to reducing emissions.
Understanding this mitigation potential has several benefits, including that:
- Current and future activities can be modified or improved to maximise mitigation benefits,
- Sub-national governments can report on the mitigation contribution of their activities to the overall national mitigation work, in line with the Climate Change Act,
- Additional funding that is available for climate action could be leveraged to support implementation and enhancement of government activities.
The process of considering climate change across other activities is called mainstreaming.
Click here (link to forthcoming mainstreaming guide) for a guide to mainstreaming, along with a training presentation on the topic (link to presentation after training).
Emissions reduction targets
Under the Climate Act, the Minister will publish the “National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trajectory”, which will set a national target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This target will be expressed as a total maximum amount of emissions the country can emit over a specific time period.
This target will be achieved by two key instruments defined under the Act, being Sectoral Emissions Targets which allocated to different sectors of the economy, and carbon budgets, allocated to operators of certain high emitting activities – largely private sector companies, at this stage largely private sector companies.
Although not required by the Act, sub-national governments may elect to set their own emissions targets. Motivations for doing so include being signatories of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and membership of C40 Cities .
Some guidance for setting targets is contained in the GPC.
The South African government has also produced a draft guide for target setting for municipalities, but its status is unknown.
Mitigation and the Just Transition
The Just Transition can be thought of as shifting to a low-carbon economy in a way that doesn’t leave workers, communities and regions that depend on fossil fuels behind, by ensuring they get support, new opportunities and a fair share of the benefits of the transition. All projects – mitigation and adaptation – should take a Just Transition into account in their development. Not only will this ensure maximum benefit, but funding may be available for projects that also have a Just Transition link.
For further information, see https://justenergytransition.co.za