Sustainable development planning in South Africa: a case of over-strategizing?

This paper serves as a background document for a research project that informs sustainable development planning through the analysis of developmental impacts of mitigation action

drivers and barriers to institutional change

The assumption that there will be trade-offs between climate change mitigation measures and poverty reduction measures goes largely unchallenged in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This paper analyses how these trade-offs unfold at the national level in South Africa. South Africa is a middle income country that exemplifies the challenge of accommodating efforts for emissions reductions and poverty reduction at the same time. The paper analyses the trade-offs and distributional conflicts that drive and hinder institutional change in the current climate policy regime. The analysis focuses on three regulatory regimes in climate change: the climate change response white paper, the carbon tax and the renewable energy program. A combination of interview-based qualitative research and an innovative discourse network analysis reveals the discourse between competing coalitions supporting and opposing specific interventions. We find in the case of South Africa that the lack of economic growth over the last few years has kept emissions levels relatively low and consequently postponed the hard trade-offs between climate change mitigation and poverty reduction. Trade-offs appear in the political discourse, especially around the carbon tax and carbon budgets. Yet, distributional conflicts determine both drivers and barriers to institutional change. Powerful coalitions opposing the carbon tax managed to push the government into postponing the implementation of the tax. We conclude that win-win situations are possible, and that the crux lies in the implementation. A carbon tax proposal has made provisions for off-setting emissions through investment in clean technologies in low income communities. The renewable energy program created large foreign investment influx into the country, which is partially spent on community development. The main challenge in creating win-win situations is overcoming the distributional conflicts. Lack of policy coordination, alignment and clarity of the legal frameworks create severe barriers to institutional change

South African approaches to MRV of mitigation actions: the case of installing solar water heaters

How to measure, report and verify (MRV) mitigation actions? This question calls growing attention in the international negotiations on climate change, because industrialized countries agreed to support developing countries in their efforts of reducing emissions through so-called ‘nationally appropriate mitigation actions’ (NAMAs). In the process of defining those NAMAs, the question stands out how the emission reductions can be verified. This case study illustrates the way ‘MRV’ works in the case of solar water heating. South Africa has no officially registered NAMAs in the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) yet. Therefore, we chose one of the most advanced ‘mitigation action’, which is the roll out program for solar water heating, which is a key energy efficiency program. We find that the incentive system matters for collecting data for MRV. The responsible agency for the incentive needs to provide for data collection. The process becomes easier if previsions for MRV are already made in the stage of designing the policy. We recommend to design the MRV system of mitigation based on existing structures, such as the measurement and verification (M&V) standards, which apply to the monitor efficiency programs. We further recommend to make the data collection and management transparent, and to designate an independent, cross-sectorial agency to support the government in the data management and quality control, to ensure coherent and reliable reporting

Novel shapes of South–South collaboration: emerging knowledge networks on co-benefits of climate and development policies

This paper analyses knowledge networks on co-benefits of climate and development. The world’s most sizeable populations live in middle-income countries with emerging economies and growing emissions. This situation requires political intervention to facilitate economic growth, job creation and poverty eradication alongside efforts to control emissions growth. This interdisciplinary study draws on concepts and methods from sociology, political science, science and technology studies and the management literature. The authors combine social network and discourse network analysis in an innovative way. The methodology analyses both the interactions between researchers as well as their actual knowledge contributions. The study argues that there is a substantial network of knowledge holders involved in knowledge creation on climate and development co-benefits. Our analysis shows the type of interactions between two knowledge networks as well as new knowledge emerging from these networks. Research groups and practitioners have produced 17 novel knowledge contributions, ranging from definitions of co-benefits, methodology and implementation. Yet the networks remain loosely connected. Practitioners who have less time to assess academic literature could benefit from closer interactions with more academically oriented experts and vice versa

Reducing inequality and poverty while mitigating climate change: key challenges for research and practice in middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America

This paper provides some answers to this question and outlines future research on mitigation and inequality. The question is relevant, because developing countries have come under growing pressure to introduce mitigation actions that help to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. These mitigation actions need to be ‘nationally appropriate’ (UNFCCC 2007) and different from those in the developed countries, taking the economic structures, poverty and inequalities into account. Mitigating emissions and reducing poverty at the same time sharpens the trade-­off. Governments need to decide on expenditure of limited resources on poverty or mitigation. According to previous research the need for such a trade-­off decreases when countries become richer (Ravallion et al. 2000). This implies that governments have a growing option to achieve both ends

South African approaches to measuring, reporting and verifying: a scoping report

The South African government announced its intention to make emissions data reporting mandatory for emitters of more than a 0.1Mt of greenhouse gases per year in the 2011 National Climate Change Response White Paper. The government intends to establish a ‘climate change response monitoring and evaluation system’, that ‘evolves with international measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements.’ MRV is one of the key topics in the international climate negotiations to create trust and legitimacy. This report presents a mapping exercise of South African approaches to MRV. Research shows that a lot of databases and collections exist already, particularly in the emissions intensive energy sector. However, there is no coherent overall approach to the management of these data. Coordination is necessary for a comprehensive system. Government needs to lead this process ensuring the participation of all departments. It will be necessary to build on the existing structures and capacities to achieve the commitments in the White Paper. Three case studies present existing approaches to GHG reporting, besides the overall scoping. This scoping report is the result from the first phase of the Measurement and Performance Tracking Project that the World Resource Institute conducts in cooperation with the German Ministry for Environment and the Energy Research Centre