The global metals and mining sector is a significant producer of carbon dioxide. Mining is currently responsible for an estimated 4% to 7% of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions worldwide, while the steel sector accounts for about 10% of combined global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
With this in mind, efforts to decarbonise economies are being accelerated worldwide to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030.
South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, in partnership with national and provincial environmental partners, submitted an updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) report at the twenty-sixth edition of the climate negotiations, held in Glasgow in November 2021.
This represents a 17% and 28% reduction in 2025 and 2030 respectively, on the initial upper-end target of the 614-million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent set in the 2015 NDC.
Creamer Media’s ‘Decarbonisation 2022: Decarbonisation in South Africa’s mining and steel sectors’ report considers the challenges the country faces in achieving these goals and the steps that it is taking to realise the its decarbonisation ambitions.
Published 20 September 2022.