Executive Summary

The transition to a low carbon future both across the economy and globally is not a simple one. There is no single vision of how international negotiations will evolve; what the implications will be for individual countries and their emitters; and how technologies, markets and societies might evolve. These factors and many others introduce unprecedented high levels of uncertainty for decision makers, policy makers and other stakeholders navigating this space, particularly so in developing country contexts such as South Africa. 

Successful decision making in this changing world will require whole new sets of skills and tools, to support and enable ongoing, contingent decision making with imperfect information in the context of rapid change. Objectives will also shift, from decisions that set one particular course, to the building of resilience and agility in the face of rapid change.  Milestones, evaluation points and long term visions to navigate by will become more important and useful.

Guidance can be found in the emerging  fields of complexity thinking, multi-criteria decision analysis and scenario planning – in other words those that have shaped the development of this project.  Individuals and organisations responsible for navigating the complexity would be well placed to begin to develop and apply these skills and tools as soon as possible, to help ensure that these facilities, their value chains, and the economy and society more broadly are resilient and remain relevant, as the world rises to the decarbonisation challenge.