In-Country Technical Expert Review of South Africa’s First Biennial Transparency Report

12 May 2025, Environment House, Pretoria

Opening Remarks by the Deputy Director-General of Climate Change and Air Quality/ Head of the South African Delegation under the UNFCCC

Distinguished Delegates, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, members of the Technical Expert Review Team from all over the world, the CSIR team, the team from the University of Cape Town, South South North and of course our own Climate Change and Air Quality Branch Team, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the in-country technical expert review of South Africa’s First Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement, in our beautiful Capital City of Pretoria, and especially within Environment House, which is the Head Office of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.

Framework Convention on Climate Change under the Paris Agreement on 20 December 2024. The BTR was submitted together with the Common Tabular Format tables for tracking implementation and achievement of our NDC as well as Financial, Technology Transfer and Development and Capacity Building Support Needed and Received. South Africa also submitted the complete National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report for the years 2000 to 2022 comprising of the National GHG Inventory Document on the 23rd of December 2024, and the Common Reporting Tables in January 2025.

South Africa’s NDC features both 2025 and 2030 absolute economy-wide emissions targets, and we have in our first BTR reported on progress in implementing our NDC for the first time, for the years 2021 and 2022. In common with other developing countries, compiling our first BTR was extremely challenging, and would not have been possible without our use of the flexibilities provided in the MPGs, and without the financial and technical support provided through the GEF, by the Secretariat and the CGE, and bilaterally. We will be reflecting on these experiences in the June meeting in Bonn.

South Africa as you know has always been committed to an effective and efficient transparency system, as an essential component of the global effort to address climate change. We have already submitted five Biennial Update Reports and four National Communications to the UNFCCC. We believe that BTRs, will serve as key inputs to the Global Stocktake process from 2028 onwards, and will provide critical information to assess collective progress in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, in mitigation, adaptation and the provision of support. The urgency to address climate change through robust action and the need to account and track progress against the Paris Agreement goals is extremely important, now more than ever. We cannot allow our future generations to live in a world beyond 1.5 °C, as the adverse impacts of climate change will be even more dire. In South Africa, we are already experiencing unusually heavy rains which have led to flooding, mortalities and displacement of people, and in other parts of the country, unprecedented droughts.

This is even more devastating considering our national circumstances; we are already facing the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality. We cannot separate our response to climate change from our response to these development challenges. We now have our Climate Change Act, which is enabling the development of an effective climate change response, including a long-term, just transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy and society, in the context of sustainable development.

In implementing the Climate Change Act, we are already developing Sectoral Emission Targets for key sectors of the economy, and working with sub-national governments to assist them to develop sectoral adaptation plans and strategies which are aligned to our National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, which is our National Adaptation Plan. We urge the developed countries, in line with the principles of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities, including Equity to provide the support that we need to address climate change, our needs are well outlined in this BTR.

As the South African team, we look forward to engaging with the Technical Expert Review Team over the next 5 days as you review our first BTR. We are fully committed to using this process to improve our reporting over time as well as identifying our capacity-building needs with the help of the Technical Expert Review Team, to bring about these improvements . We view the Technical Expert Review Process as a very valuable opportunity for reflection, learning, and strengthening our transparency systems going forward.

We furthermore wish to express our gratitude to the Global Environment Facility and our implementation Partners for this BTR, including UNEP and South South North. Let me also take the opportunity to thank the South African team who worked tirelessly in 2023 and 2024 to ensure that this BTR was submitted on time. Specifically, the Climate Change and Air Quality Brach led through the International Climate Change Relations and Reporting Chief Directorate, our Research Institution , the CSIR who assisted with drafting some of the chapters and the University of Cape Town, who conducted the independent review to ensure that we submit a BTR which meets the requirements contained in Decisions 18/CMA.1 and 5/CMA.3 and their annexes.

I thank you.