South African companies need to start planning for 2021 when they would become liable for penalties for exceeding carbon emission quotas, the environmental affairs department stressed on Tuesday.

“We don’t want to be found wanting when 2020 arrives,” Minister Edna Molewa told a media briefing ahead of her budget vote speech in the National Assembly, a fortnight after 175 countries inked the Paris Agreement to fight climate change.

Molewa said her department had begun domestic ratification process to prepare for the agreement entering into binding force the following year.

Companies, including parastatals, would be given quotas – called “budgets” in the department’s terminology – for emissions ranging from 614 megatonnes at the bottom end of the scale to 318 megatonnes at the top end, deputy-director general Judy Beaumont explained.

The entities would, for a period, be given leeway of five percent on top of their quota, before fines became applicable.

Beaumont said it was encouraging that low emission businesses, with an annual footprint of 0.1 megatonnes, were approaching the department for the relevant information on how the system would work as they were preparing for its entry into force.