Evaluating the effectiveness of South Africa’s air quality legislation as a climate change mitigation tool
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
The global community is still grappling with the climate change crisis. Due to the intrinsic relationship between climate change and air quality, South Africa is addressing climate change through its air quality laws. This report demonstrates how these laws have been incorporated in a climate change context. It also evaluates whether the air quality laws have been robust enough to combat climate change. The report further argues that in practice, South Africa has fallen short, mainly due to a badly designed legal framework that has many loopholes, which has led to insufficient implementation. It goes on to make five recommendations on strengthening the legal framework to make it more effective. This report recommends that specific climate change legislation should be enacted; that South Africa should revisit and reform its current air quality laws; that the national government should strengthen the local government’s capacity
to improve air quality; that there should be more cooperation between government departments; and that priority area management plans should contain penalties
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws by Coursework and Research Report at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023
Keywords
Climate Change, Global community, Climate change crisis, Air quality laws, Air quality legislation, UCTD
Citation
Mlapisane, Simelweyinkosi. (2023). Evaluating the effectiveness of South Africa’s air quality legislation as a climate change mitigation tool [Master’s dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. WireDSpace. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/38743