- The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr Dion George, has officially published South Africa’s 9th National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which provides estimates of the current emissions levels.
The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report (NIR) was published in Gazette Number: 52067 of Friday, 7 February 2025. It covers the period 2000-2022 and will form part of the First Biennial Transparency Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“South Africa is required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to provide in its national inventory, on gas-by-gas basis, and its units’ mass, estimates of anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), by sources and removals by sinks.
“The 9th NIR is compiled in accordance with the standard National Inventory Report format in line with the Convention Reporting Guidelines,” the department explained.
In 1997, the Republic of South Africa ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 (Convention).
The Republic of South Africa is obliged under articles 4(1)(a) and 12(1)(a) of the Convention, to prepare and report on national Greenhouse Gas emissions and removals to the Conference of the Parties (COP).
“The main objective of the Convention is to stabilize Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human-induced interference with the climate change system.
“The primary use cases of the inventory report are to support informed policy and decision making on viable climate change mitigation response measures for South Africa to achieve the envisioned transition to lower carbon economy and climate resilient society aspired by the National Development Plan (Vision 2030) and the National Climate Change Response Policy (2011),” the department said.
Government’s National Climate Change Response Policy was approved in October 2011 and was formally published as a White Paper in the Government Gazette.
The objectives of the policy include effectively managing inevitable climate change impacts through interventions that build and sustain South Africa’s social, economic and environmental resilience and emergency response capacity.
The 9th National GHG Inventory Report can be accessed HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
