South Africa: Climate Change

Research shows that most organisations capture only a fraction of their environmental footprint, with 75-90% of emissions often sitting within value chains that remain unmeasured. This analysis examines the structural blind spots, data limitations, and governance gaps that cause systematic underestimation of environmental impact, and explores what stronger environmental governance frameworks should look like.

South Africa's Climate Change Act, 2024, together with its supporting regulations, marks a fundamental shift in the legal landscape for high‑emitting sectors and mining is directly in scope.

The principle of permanent sovereignty of nations over natural resources has anchored the international economic order since the United Nations adopted it in 1962.

As South Africa continues to adapt to a rapidly changing legal and regulatory environment, businesses face a growing range of legal challenges, from traditional commercial disputes to complex regulatory investigations.

On 24 November 2024 the Arusha Protocol finally came into force, almost 10 years after it was first adopted in Arusha, Tanzania on 6 July 2015.

South Africa has a multi-billion Rand forestry industry which is responsible for 9.8% of the country's agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 4.9% of South Africa's manufacturing GDP.

"The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived" – these are the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, announcing that July 2023 will likely be the warmest month on record.

On 1 September 2023, President William Ruto assented to the Climate Change (Amendment) Bill (National Assembly Bill number 42 of 2023), which amends the Climate Change Act, Number 11 of 2016.

"If you take away land from women in the rural areas, you take away their livelihoods; you take away the very thing that they identify with. We fight. Because we have nothing else to lose.