Research Publications/Outputs

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Browsing Research Publications/Outputs by browse.metadata.type "Report"

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    Statistics of utility-scale power generation in South Africa in 2021
    (2022-04) Pierce, Warrick T; Ferreira, Bianca A
    Summary of 2021 statistics: Coal still dominates and provides about 80% of electricity generated, record high diesel usage, and renewables (excluding hydro) accounted for 6.7%.
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    Sustainable Use of South Africa's Inland Waters: A situation assessment of Resource Directed Measures 12 years after the 1998 National Water Act
    (WRC, 2011-09) King, J; Pienaar, Harrison
    Water resources provide important benefits to humankind in the form of commodities such as water and food and by enhancing lives in many other ways. In South Africa, a water-scarce country, we recognise that water resources are under stress as never before, as competition for water increases between potential or actual users from a range of sectors. All these sectors contribute to the welfare of the country, including poverty eradication, through improved economic development and the creation of employment. Water is also fundamental for the long-term sustainability of our water resources as functioning ecosystems but only if they are in good ecological condition can they continue to provide the ecological services we value. Over the last two decades, the Water Research Commission has helped to stimulate the research-based development of a ground-breaking policy that recognises water resources as living aquatic ecosystems and sets out an approach for South Africa that supports their sustainable use and management. Guided by the Agenda 21 global initiative, this approach is encapsulated in Chapter 3 of the country’s National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998 (NWA). The NWA recognises three Resource Directed Measures: the Classification System, the Reserve, and Resource Quality Objectives, which together form the protection measures for the country’s water resources. Since the promulgation of the NWA, the move to implement Resource Directed Measures has made considerable progress in South Africa, in parallel with new and visionary technologies that are helping to operationalise these protection measures in harmony with the imperative for water-resource development. There has been constructive engagement between sectors throughout, particularly between water scientists, research institutes and government. Collaboration such as this is possibly unrivalled in the world, even if the road has been rocky at times. While the NWA, with its measures for protecting water resources is visionary and innovative, its implementation will be neither quick nor easy – worthwhile endeavours such as this seldom are. As a community of water specialists, we have spent the last 20 years developing methods and tools to assess the Reserve – that is, learning how to assess the water needed for basic human needs and for sustaining the ecological health of the aquatic systems. We have created awareness of why this water is necessary for maintaining ecosystem health, done the research, tested the outputs and put the organisational structures in place to make protection measures effective. In the last few years, work on the other two Resource Directed Measures has also begun. In essence, what comes next is a bigger challenge than all that has gone before – making our new water vision work on the ground and giving effect to all three Resource Directed Measures. This will require greater integration and cooperation than has happened so far, both within the Department of Water Affairs as well as within and between other organisations, stakeholders and society at large. We must also continue to invest in research that allows us to better understand our water resources and predict how human activities can impact them, as this will enhance our ability to make informed and accountable decisions on water use. South Africa is a world leader in this field and aims to continue to claim its space in the global knowledge economy. Whatever course we follow into the future involves compromise – we may gain benefits with development, but we may incur costs in terms of declining ecosystem health and the loss of ecological services. We need to work together as a country to identify catchment by catchment what these benefits and costs would be and to ascertain the point of acceptable trade-off between water resource development on the one hand and aquatic ecosystem protection on the other. We then need to learn to live within the boundaries we have recognised. That is truly sustainable use of water and the three Resource Directed Measures are designed to help us achieve this.
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    Using the Global Stocktake to increase national climate policy ambition and improve implementation: Summary for policy makers
    (2022-02) Mantlana, Khanyisa B; Naidoo, Sasha
    This report aims to support the independent Global Stocktake (iGST) - the cooperative efforts of a consortium of civil society actors to advance the Global Stocktake (GST), the formal process for periodically assessing collective progress in achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. The project’s main objectives are to: 1. Investigate how greater climate ambition might play out in five countries selected on the basis of their widely varying circumstances and their importance to achievement of Paris Agreement goals. 2. Obtain insights on ongoing climate change actions at the national level in these countries. 3. Assess national climate action in the context of the GST in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 4. Gain insights into the interplay of national-level climate actions (climate ambition) and international climate politics under the UNFCCC as well as related challenges and opportunities.
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    Using the Global Stocktake to increase national climate policy ambition and improve implementation: Technical report
    (2022-02) Mantlana, Khanyisa B; Naidoo, Sasha
    The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, aims to rapidly phase out GHG emissions to attain netzero emissions by the second half of the century, while promoting sustainable development and poverty eradication (UNFCCC 2015). The backbone of the Paris Agreement is nationally determined contributions (NDCs) representing efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. Initial NDCs have been submitted by 194 country parties to the Paris Agreement; 13 parties had submitted their second NDCs as of December 22, 2021 (UNFCCC 2021). A key principle of the Paris Agreement is that no country should backslide in its stated NDC targets. That is, each country should ensure that each successive NDC represents an increase in emissions reduction and reflects the party’s highest possible ambition. The manner in which countries implement their NDCs and improve them over time will determine whether the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is achieved. This situation presents decision-makers at national and international levels with urgent and unprecedented challenges. Climate action, despite accelerating since 2015, falls far short of the unprecedented transformation needed to limit impacts of climate change. In developing countries, the most critical limiters of ambition are access to or availability of finance, political will, and engaged citizens (UNDP and UNFCCC 2019). This report assesses domestic forces that influence climate action at the national level and the ways that they shape international governance of climate change under the UNFCCC, specifically, the Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement. The GST is arguably the most innovative outcome of the Paris Agreement. Its overall task is to “take stock of the implementation of this Agreement to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this Agreement and its long-term goals” (UNFCCC 2015: Article 14.1). It considers mitigation and adaptation, along with their means of implementation and support, in the context of equity and the best available science, and it serves as an ambition-raising mechanism for the Paris Agreement. The first GST began at the end of 2021 and will culminate in 2023. Starting in 2023, the GST will occur every five years in three stages: (1) collection of information, (2) technical assessment of submitted information, and (3) consideration of outputs. The GST will inform NDCs but will not review their adequacy. Nor will it consider whether the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is adequate or should be changed. The task of the GST is not to redefine the purpose of the agreement, but rather to ascertain whether its implementation is achieving that purpose. Governments alone will not succeed in achieving this purpose—hence the importance of understanding the opportunities for civil society to enhance domestic actions and international cooperation on climate actions. This report describes the approach of the study (Section 2), the relationship between climate ambition and the UNFCCC (Section 3), key barriers to and facilitators of increased ambition (Section 4), and key assessment criteria underlying the analysis of sections 3 and 4 (Section 5). Section 6 presents options, including the independent Global Stocktake (iGST), for civil society to enhance the GST and its outputs. Section 7 links exchanges with the case study countries to international climate change negotiations.