CAPE TOWN, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The South African cabinet on Thursday approved the Draft Green Transport Strategy designed to lower the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The strategy is to be published for public comments before it is carried out, government spokesperson Phumla Williams said after a fortnightly cabinet meeting.
South Africa has set a target of reducing GHG emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025.
This strategy will form the cornerstone of policy development within the transport sector regarding the lowering of the GHG emissions, Williams said.
The aim of this strategy is to minimize the adverse impact of transport on the environment while addressing current and future transport demands based on sustainable development principles.
Transport systems form the backbone of South Africa's socio-economic activities by enabling the movement of people and goods, he said.
However, emissions from the transport sector account for 10.8 percent of the country's total GHG emissions, with road transport being responsible for 91.2 percent of these GHG emissions.
GHG is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect, a process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere.
