Annual Report 2015/16

The report, presented to Parliament, outlines the achievements of the Department in the financial year 2015/16, in tandem with our constitutional mandate – to
ensure the right to an environment that is not harmful to the health and well-being of South Africans and all those who live in our country.
The 2015/16 financial year has been remarkable for the Department, and South Africa, on a number of fronts. Not least the leadership role played by South Africa in reaching a legally binding climate change agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Paris in December 2015.
The agreement is the culmination of a four-year negotiation process that was initiated in Durban in 2011 at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. The conclusion to the Durban Mandate, which was to develop a protocol, legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force, under the Convention, by no later than 2015, will see the new agreement come into effect from 2020.
In preparation for the international climate change talks, all Parties to the UNFCCC
were required to submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC Secretariat, to show what is being done to address climate change. South Africa’s INDC, submitted to the UNFCCC in September 2015, encompasses three distinct components namely mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation.