Climate Change.textsegment: In unmitigated GHG emissions scenarios, warming of up to 5 to 8°C is projected over the interior of the country by the end of this century. Under a range of warming scenarios, drier conditions will be experienced in the west and south of the country and wetter conditions in the east. Rainfall patterns will become more variable and unpredictable.
Climate Change.textsegment: Under a range of warming scenarios, drier conditions will be experienced in the west and south of the country and wetter conditions in the east. Rainfall patterns will become more variable and unpredictable. These changes will impact on water resources and food production, and increase the vulnerability of impoverished communities, amongst others.
Climate Change.textsegment: The impacts associated with such temperature increases are significant and far- reaching; threatening people and ecosystems. The impacts, which become more severe the greater the temperature increase, include sea level rise as a result of melting polar ice and glaciers, increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, changing ecosystems and desertification, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity. The knock-on effects on human populations include health risks due to increasing temperatures and heatwaves, water shortages, food insecurity, increased spread of diseases and pests as well as damage to  infrastructure due to extreme weather events.
Climate Change.textsegment: The rapid transition that will be required  presents a potential risk to economic growth and sustainable development if not managed properly. Through the Paris Agreement, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have agreed to limit “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre- industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. Article 4 of the Agreement sets out Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as the instrument countries must develop to present their part of the global effort to “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible... on the basis of equity and “in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.
Climate Change.textsegment: Under a range of warming scenarios, drier conditions will be experienced in the west and south of the country and wetter conditions in the east. Rainfall patterns will become more variable and unpredictable. These changes will impact on water resources and food production, and increase the vulnerability of impoverished communities, amongst others.
Climate Change.textsegment: An overall understanding of the sectoral narratives of change and how they  collectively feed into the national vision will be core to the success of this stage. “Massive rollout” is the final phase, in which low-emissions climate resilient options have become the new normal. The constant application of transformative action will drive large volumes of investment towards transformational change
Climate Change.textsegment: The current IEP dates from 2003, and the Department of Energy has been working on updates thereof, with a draft IEP outlining various energy scenarios having been issued in 2016 (DoE, 2016a). The draft IEP provides an indication of the sectoral energy demand, as shown in Figure 6. This breakdown is relevant in this document in that it helps to contextualise the mitigation measures presented below
Climate Change.textsegment: These barriers, coupled with the scale of funding that is required to address mitigation and adaptation, means that there is a significant need for scaled-up international support to finance the  transition to a climate-resilient inclusive low-carbon economy in South Africa. Positioning South Africa as an attractive destination for climate finance offers opportunities beyond enabling a transition to a just, sustainable and prosperous low carbon economy as discussed below. It also creates the opportunity to leverage its sophisticated and deep financial markets to serve as a gateway for climate finance to the rest of the continent, which, as mentioned earlier, is struggling to access its fair share of climate finance.
Climate Change.textsegment: Under a range of warming scenarios, drier conditions will be experienced in the west and south of the country and wetter conditions in the east. Rainfall patterns will become more variable and unpredictable. These changes will impact on water resources and food production, and increase the vulnerability of impoverished communities, amongst others.
Climate Change.textsegment: Rainfall patterns will become more variable and unpredictable. These changes will impact on water resources and food production, and increase the vulnerability of impoverished communities, amongst others (DEA, 2013). For this reason, the South African government regards climate change as a considerable threat to the country and its socio-economic development, having the potential to undermine many of the advances made in recent years.
Climate Change.textsegment: The global climate crisis  Robust scientific evidence shows that the earth’s climate system is changing as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere have been rising steadily since the industrial revolution (circa 1760), mainly as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, industrial processes, deforestation and agricultural activities. An extensive global body of research from climate scientists has confirmed the relationship between human-induced GHG emissions, higher global average surface temperatures and changes to the earth’s climate system (IPCC, 2014; IPCC, 2018).
Climate Change.textsegment: Despite the sophistication and depth of South African financial markets, a number of barriers remain that restrict the flow of funding to climate change projects. These are not unique to South Africa and include, amongst others, a relatively high degree of risk aversion among local financial institutions, difficulty in accessing longer-term financing, credibility of off-takers, high transaction costs for smaller projects, relatively long pay-back periods and a lack of attractive large low carbon investment options, difficulty in raising financing for technologies that have not been proven locally, a lack of concessionary wholesale finance, uncertainty about future electricity prices, complexity and regulatory burden of environmental regulation, a lack of public sector capacity in key areas, and an investment environment that is not conducive to investment due to policy uncertainty (Nicholls et al, 2015; Cloete et al, 2016; Cloete et al, 2018). These barriers, coupled with the scale of funding that is required to address mitigation and adaptation, means that there is a significant need for scaled-up international support to finance the  transition to a climate-resilient inclusive low-carbon economy in South Africa.