Climate change mitigation : is the south African transport sector ready for change

Abstract

Where climate change was once seen as mere speculation, it is now accepted that, without concerted effort by governments to honor their undertakings made under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015, the negative impacts of climate change and the 2050 Net Zero targets will not be realized. At the COP26 World Summit, it was recognized that many governments had not honored their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction commitments, with the economic decisions which they had made leading to an increase in the rate of GHG emissions globally. It was understood that measures required to decrease GHG emission impacts, and the usage of fossil-fuels would need to be expedited, if Net Zero targets are to be met. Within the European Union, legislation has been adopted to decrease the production of fossil-fuel run vehicles and eliminate their production by 2035. Within all sectors of the logistics value chain, measures are being adopted to decrease logistics based GHG emissions. In this paper, the readiness of the South African transport sector to meet challenges posed by these changes will be discussed. Of relevance are the legislative changes and infrastructure required and the financial and economic impacts on the logistics sector. The readiness of the South African economy to make these changes and adaptations will also be discussed, together with possible impacts of delayed reaction to global economic logistics and legislative undertakings.