COVID-19, which first surfaced in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and reached pandemic proportions by early 2020 has added an additional layer of complexity to an increasingly uncertain global landscape. The pandemic comes at a time when shifts in the global political system were already beginning to surface. While the full impact of COVID-19 on global politics is yet to be seen, what is clear, is that as we move forward, uncertainty will become the new normal, at least in the short term. This policy brief seeks to understand how, given this uncertainty, South Africa should pursue its climate change objectives at both the domestic and international level and indeed what these objectives should be.
