CSIR researchers in climate change have studied and highlighted the varying challenges and drivers related to climate ambition in Ethiopia, Ghana, Norway, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The research team completed the work under contract to the ClimateWorks Foundation. The foundation supports the independent Global Stocktake (iGST), a consortium that seeks to help analysts and advocates use the Global Stocktake (GST), the formal process established under the Paris Agreement to periodically take stock of progress, as an opportunity to facilitate real-world progress in tackling climate change. The team studied ways in which national decision-makers will be influenced by the GST and proposed how the iGST can make that influence more effective.

The main objectives of the study were to investigate how greater climate ambition might play out in specific countries, obtain insights on ongoing climate change actions at national level, assess the relationship between national climate action and the GST, and gain insights into the interplay of national-level climate change actions and international climate politics under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as related challenges and opportunities. The report highlighted various drivers and challenges related to climate ambition in the five countries, selected based on their widely varying circumstances and their importance to the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals.

Some of the key findings included that governments have a central role in implementing ambitious climate change actions and that the level of climate change awareness differs significantly among countries.  The researchers say that the key barriers to the realisation of climate ambition include socioeconomic challenges and the lack of policy coherence, technology development, skills transfer (except in Norway), capacity development, access to climate finance and access to technology. The team found that ambition could be increased by increasing the capacity of institutions of higher learning on climate change issues, utilising international partnerships to support opportunities for technology development and transfer and continuous upskilling, increasing regional cooperation, enhancing the role of the private sector, and increasing financial support of Just Transition strategies to shift to low carbon technologies.

The research team found that civil society could better contribute to domestic actions that enhance national-level climate ambition with public-private sector partnerships for building on existing energy access and energy efficiency projects, international cooperation in leveraging financial and technical resources, and platforms for sharing lessons on the Just Transition, the design and implementation of carbon taxes and the private sector benefits of realising climate ambition.  

Click on links below to read more:

• Using the Global Stocktake to increase national climate policy ambition and improve implementation: Summary for policy makers
• Using the Global Stocktake to increase national climate policy ambition and improve implementation: Technical report
   

For more information contact:

Brian Mantlana
Email: bmantlana@csir.co.za