Investigating business' contribution to climate change governance in areas of limited statehood: the case of South Africa and Kenya

Climate change and the related social and economic challenges present society with problems at multiple levels. There is a diverse range of actors who are contributing to climate change governance, including those who are going to be affected by the impacts. In areas of limited statehood were states have varying degrees of deficits in their abilities to steer effective climate change mitigation and adaptation, private actors such as business organisations are expected to step in. This research set to investigate how and why companies in South Africa and Kenya contribute to climate change governance. South Africa and Kenya are selected because they represent areas which have varying levels of limited statehood. The results from the content analysis and the case studies reveal that companies’ climate change governance contributions can be characterised into four configurations: laggards, emergent planners, efficiency drivers and visionaries. The laggards display very limited responses and if anything adopt cosmetic initiatives. The majority of Kenyan and South African firms are in this cluster. Emergent planners are in the early stages of implementing self-regulatory initiatives mostly at the firm level. The efficiency drivers which consist of mostly energy intensive companies engage in co-regulation which involves partnering with the state to set and implement rules in energy efficiency accords in both countries. The firms, in turn, self-regulate themselves by internally implementing the energy efficiency accord guidelines. The final configurations, the visionaries, make more comprehensive mitigation and adaptation governance contributions focusing on collective self-regulation and adopting the role of the “inspector” along their supply chain. On the basis of these empirical findings, the research identifies different ways in which the institutional, organisational and issue specific drivers interact to explain the variations in firms’ governance contributions between countries, sectors and different companies. First, corporate climate change governance contributions vary between South Africa and Kenya as a result of the countries’ different levels of statehood. South African firms are more responsive to climate change than Kenyan companies because they are more exposed to the shadow of hierarchy. Statehood is a significant factor in the context of possible alternative explanations. Second, the climate change governance contributions vary between sectors due to the combined effect of the shadow of anarchy and the task complexity associated with securing energy or water supply among “high salience” sectors. Furthermore, carbon intensive sectors have strong associations which enable them to address collective problems linked to climate change. Lastly, there are significant levels of variance in the governance contributions between the different types of companies, that is, between large, multinational companies and smaller, domestic firms. The large firms engage in more comprehensive mitigation and adaptation efforts due to organisational factors which include “asset specificity” and organisational resources

a comparative analysis of CDM in South Africa and China

Both South Africa and China are emergent economies heavily dependent on fossilfuel based energy sources, and the potential to leverage the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is significant in both countries. However, experience to date with CDM indicates South Africa has significantly lagged behind China in the uptake of the CDM, accounting for only 0.9% of the worldwide registered annual Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) while China has dominated the market, generating over 54% of the annual worldwide CERs. Thus, an opportunity exists to redefine the role of CDM in South Africa to better incentivise a lower carbon development trajectory. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the CDM experience in China and South Africa in order to identify the underlying drivers and obstacles to CDM in both countries. It is the authors’ objective to analyse the lessons learnt from marketleading China and laggard South Africa to better understand the structures and policies necessary within host CDM countries to unlock the potential of CDM in a post 2012 regime

Thesis

Water is an essential resource in everyday life and if managed properly can help alleviate the day to day struggles that most South Africans face. The transition to democracy in South Africa required a process of law reform that saw old acts abolished to make way for new legislation that encapsulate the principles of equity, sustainability, and efficiency. In terms of the National Water Act (NWA) strategies including the national water resource strategy (NWRS) have been developed to facilitate the proper management of water resources. South Africa has been divided into nineteen water catchment management areas, identified in the strategy, and new water management institutions have been designed to help address the problems of water provision, management, conservation and participation by stakeholders in these processes (DWAF, 2004b). This project seeks to analyse and evaluate these new water management arrangements, especially relating to the water user association (WUA). A key focus will be the role that socio-cultural issues, particularly the role of traditional leadership and cultural and religious practices play in determining water management outcomes

Business and Human Rights in South Africa: An Analysis of Antecedents of Human Rights Due Diligence

human rights, due diligence, content analysis, public reporting, South Africa,