A transition away from fossil fuels in South Africa is required to meet the obligations of the Paris Agreement, and to address the challenge of climate change. The country remains on an unsustainable path towards increasing fossil fuel dependency, while its immense potential for renewable energy lies untapped. Urgent work is needed to identify and assess the policy barriers which are holding the country back. The limited literature on barrier theory is reviewed, and a new taxonomy of policy barriers is developed. This is then used to interpret the findings of 28 elite semi-structured interviews with key organisations and individuals, which are analysed to ascertain what lies beneath the current direction of travel, and how these barriers are impeding progress. The paper develops the policy implications of those findings and presents conclusions for action needed by the South African government and others. It further concludes that the techniques developed are applicable to a wide range of transitional situations.

南非需要从化石燃料过渡，以履行《巴黎协定》的义务，并应对气候变化的挑战。该国在增加对化石燃料的依赖方面仍处于不可持续的道路上，而其巨大的可再生能源潜力尚未开发。需要开展紧急工作来确定和评估阻碍该国发展的政策障碍。回顾了关于障碍理论的有限文献，并发展了一种新的政策障碍分类法。然后将其用于解释对关键组织和个人的 28 次精英半结构化访谈的结果，分析这些结果以确定当前旅行方向背后的原因，以及这些障碍如何阻碍进展。本文阐述了这些调查结果的政策含义，并提出了南非政府和其他国家需要采取的行动的结论。它进一步得出结论，所开发的技术适用于广泛的过渡情况。