A draft monitoring and evaluation system, which forms part of South Africa's climate change response policy, is expected to be finalised by the end of the year, Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) Climate Change and Air Quality Management deputy director-general Judy Beaumont said at a national climate change response stakeholder workshop, in Gauteng, on Thursday.

The draft system is being designed in consultation with government departments and civil society and business stakeholders.

"The top current priority for monitoring and evaluation is to gain clarity on what information is needed from departments, parastatals and various industry sectors to create a monitoring and evaluation system that will enable the country to align climate change mitigation and adaptation measures with our developmental objectives as a country," said DEA Climate Change Monitoring and Evaluation chief director Brian Mantlana.

"To date, our studies, in consultation with business, government and academia, have identified 183 possible mitigation opportunities in various industries and sectors and ranked them according to their beneficial or detrimental impacts on civil society, job creation, the economy and the costs to implement each of the opportunities.

“The results are then further divided into those we can achieve with local resources and those that require external support,” said Beaumont.

Further, a near-term priority programme for mitigation and adaptation aspects of climate change response aims to scale-up existing climate change response initiatives, as well as to introducte new initiatives, informed by the monitoring and evaluation system under development.

Analysis of the potential mitigation and emissions reduction measures that are technically possible in each sector and subsector will inform the measures that are chosen as solutions to achieve the mitigation and emissions reduction objectives in each sector and will, cumulatively, inform the national climate change response.

A range of different mitigation and emissions reduction measures can in this way be developed for each sector, with carbon tax being only one example of such measures, concluded Beaumont.