Legal stakeholders have welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the Climate Change Bill into law on July 23, and have also highlighted areas of focus.

The Environmental Assessment Practitioners Association of South Africa (EAPASA) says the signing of the Bill is a step in the right direction, as South Africa has established legislation aimed specifically at building an effective response to climate change.

As the sole Registration Authority mandated by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) to register environmental assessment practitioners (EAPs), EAPASA emphasises that it will ensure registered EAPs hold primary responsibility for the planning, management, coordination or review of environmental-impact assessments.

Meanwhile, Bowmans mining and environmental law specialists Claire Tucker and Marga Jordaan point out that the DFFE has not yet released a statement with implementation milestones.

According to the two, the most significant impact of the Climate Change Act for the private sector is the framework for the regulation of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emitting sectors; however, they note that no specific penalties are provided for the failure to comply with the sectoral emission targets.

“The Act is a welcome attempt by government to reduce GHG emissions and achieve the ultimate goal of net-zero by 2050. However, without stricter penalties for a failure to comply with the emission targets and carbon budgets set for the specific sectors, its real effect may still leave net-zero some way off,” they emphasise.

As such, they suggest that, until the sectoral emission targets and carbon budgets are published, businesses should continue to submit progress reports on their pollution prevention plans, which will form the basis for the GHG mitigation plans in terms of the Act.

“Sectoral emission targets will likely only be published more than a year from now considering that the Minister must only list the GHG-emitting sectors and subsectors that are subject to sectoral emissions targets within a year of the coming into operation of the Act,” they posit.

Herbert Smith Freehills environmental, social and governance director Ernst Muller informs that the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and other members of Cabinet are required to respectively develop and publish a National Adaptation Strategy and Plan and Sector Adaptation Strategies and Plans.

He emphasises that these strategies and plans should seek to reduce the vulnerability of society, the economy, specific sectors and the environment to the effects of climate change, strengthen the resilience of the socioeconomic and environmental system, and enhance the adaptive capacity of society, the environment, specific sectors and economy to the impacts of climate change.