Abstract for: Using System Dynamics to Model Carbon Emissions from Electric Vehicle Market Penetration in South Africa

South Africa, like several other countries through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015 established the Paris Agreement where pledges were made to develop mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With road transport contributing the most GHG emissions in the transport sector, it was necessary to draft the Green Transport Strategy to look at mechanisms to reduce emissions. Some of these included a move towards electric vehicles. In this study, various electric vehicle targets were established and a system dynamics simulator was developed to run scenarios to determine the impact on emissions in the transport and electricity sector based on the country’s reliance on coal-fired power stations for electricity generation. Results indicated that the net decrease in transport emissions is far greater than the net increase in carbon emissions in the electricity sector.