In 2020, over 67% of the population lived in urban areas and by 2050 that number is projected to reach nearly 80%.20 South Africa faces the dual challenge of urbanisation and the imperative of building proper housing for existing inhabitants of the cities. The residential sector’s share of total final energy consumption has decreased slightly from about 20% in 1990 to 18% in 2019, whereas public and commercial share has increased from 4.7% to 7.7% in the same time.21 Direct emissions from the building sector made up 8% of total CO₂ emissions in 2020.8
Our analysis indicates that to achieve a 1.5°C compatible pathway the buildings sector would need to be decarbonised between 2030 and 2041. For this to be possible, electrification (produced using renewables) would need to be upscaled from 33% in 2019 to over 90% by 2050. Hydrogen is not likely to play a role before 2030 and is projected to remain under 5% of the total mix in the sector thereafter.
Mandatory energy efficiency codes have been introduced for new residential and non-residential buildings, but not for existing buildings. Building inefficient, poorly designed buildings in the present locks in future high energy use as buildings can have a lifespan of between 40-120 years.22 The Post-2015 National Energy Efficiency Strategy provides targets for energy consumption reductions relative to 2015 levels: a 50% reduction in public buildings, 30% in residential building stock, and 37% in the commercial sector.23
28 While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches.
South Africaʼs buildings sector direct CO₂ emissions (of energy demand)
MtCO₂/yr
Unit
510152025303519902010203020502070
Historical emissions
SSP1 High CDR reliance
SSP1 Low CDR reliance
Low energy demand
1.5°C compatible buildings sector benchmarks
Direct CO₂ emissions and shares of electricity, heat and biomass in the buildings final energy demand from illustrative 1.5°C pathways for South Africa