ABSTRACT
South Africa's total carbon emissions have been fairly stable in the period since 2007, despite a rapid increase prior to then. In the post-apartheid era, much political economic analysis of South Africa is now focussed on use of a 'developmental state' frame. Developmental states are traditionally associated with hierarchical methods. The South African electricity system owes its genesis mainly to the interests of big mining and metal transformation industries that have dominated, and are still crucially important to the South African economy. Renewable energy became an important plank of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) whose 'green accord' emphasised the importance of domestic production of renewable energy plants and equipment. A key problem for renewable energy is that it has fallen foul of a conflict between different egalitarian campaigns that access to low cost energy by poor people and developing renewable energy sources.
