ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF PROJECTS: A SUMMARY

South Africa is a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. South Africa is classed as a developing country under the Kyoto Protocol and therefore does not have specified commitments to reduce or cap carbon emissions. However, in the Copenhagen Accord, South Africa undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 34% by 2020 and by 42% by 2025. Currently, no legislative instruments have been passed to require constructions to comply with carbon emissions or climate change targets. It is expected that such instruments will be introduced once the detailed technical work and mitigation action plans needed to ensure that South Africa achieves these targets have been fnalised.