“Internationally South Africa is regarded as a leader in Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) development, but is this actually the case? Similarly to other countries, South Africa has yet to formally submit a NAMA to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change registry, nor have mitigation actions been articulated as NAMAs at a domestic policy level. This is not to say, however, that mitigation activities are not happening – in the areas of
energy efficiency and renewable energy significant progress has been made in South Africa. Yet these cannot be attributed to the NAMA concept per se. Rather, the drivers relate to energy policy and – very broadly speaking – national climate change objectives as outlined in the current National Climate Change Response Strategy. This paper reviews how South African NAMAs are presented in international literature and how this compares to mitigation actions
and national policy development and implementation. It finds that there is disjuncture between what is reflected in the literature and what is observable in South Africa.”
