Towards Decarbonising Transport: South Africa 2025

South Africa's G20 presidency in 2025 is a first for an African country and a unique opportunity to highlight the country's efforts in its decarbonising transport sector. This updated G20 Decarbonising Stocktake country factsheet provides a comprehensive overview on South Africa’s climate ambition in the transport sector. South Africa, with a population of 60 million, relies heavily on road transport. The country has the highest urban population in Africa with over two-thirds of the population living in urban areas. 

In 2017, the country launched the Green Transport Strategy which aims to reduce GHG emissions from the transport sector by 50–80 percent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. It also includes mode shift targets and an interim target for vehicle efficiency by 2030. These targets were adopted before South Africa announced its ambition to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. To further strenghten efforts, a CO₂ differentiated tax is applied to motor vehicles at registration based on their CO₂ emissions, and a general CO₂ tax was introduced in 2019.

In December 2023, South Africa pushlished a white paper on the manufacture, sale and use of EVs. According to its latest NDC, it aims to ensure that 10% of its vehicle fleet is EVs and hybrids by 2030, aiming for 40% by 2050. Currently, an estimated 3500 EVs are in accross the country. In the energy sector, South Africa set a new target in 2023 to increase the share with renewable energy to 41% by 2030.