MechChem Africa November-December 2022

COP27: South Africa’s plan for a just energy transition

Peter Middleton

executed if there is grant funding," he said, “particu larly to manage the social aspects of the transition.” "I have stressed that the component of the grant funding is much lower thanwhat we need to fund our transition. We are a country that is already heavily burdened with debt. And I've communicated that very clearly," he told the commission. Leo Roberts of E3G – a global independent climate change think tank set up to tackle barriers and advance solutions for a safe climate – talking to Chloé Farand of Climate Home News, said: “This investment plan is real evidence that a JETP process can drive the development of financeable, Paris aligned, country-owned low-carbon development plans. Donor nations must now ensure sufficient grant and concessional finance is mobilised to lever age the vast sums needed for South Africa to deliver.” Hear, hear. Accord i ng to the Wor l d Meteoro l og i ca l Organization’s (WMO’s) provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report: the past eight years are likely to be the eight warmest on record, while extreme heatwaves, drought and devastating flood ing have affected millions of people and cost billions this year. Since 1993, the sea level had risen nearly 10 mm by January 2020 and is at a new record high this year, with the past two and a half years alone accounting for 10% of the overall rise since satellite measure ments began nearly 30 years ago. 2022 also took an exceptionally heavy toll on glaciers. The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and in September 2022, it rained rather than snowed there for the first time. The global mean temperature in 2022 is currently estimated to be between about 1.02 and 1.28 °C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, while concentrations of the main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – once again reached record levels in 2021,with the annual increase in methane concentration the highest on record. Yet global warming and climate change is only one of the World’s current crises. Cyril Ramaphosa’s blueprint for transition is bold and comprehensive in that it directly associates our green energy transition with strengthened energy security, a stronger economy and amore just society. And while the costs seem staggering, weren’t we considering a R1-trillion nuclear programme just a few years ago? One that wasn’t associated with any just considerations for those workers and communities affected by the move away from coal!

At the UN’s annual climate change conference, held in Egypt on FridayNovember 4, just ahead of COP27, Cyril Ramaphosa presented a 200-page, $84-billion, R1.5-trillion 2023-2027 investment plan, which he described as “a blueprint for an economic transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy”. This with a view to “addressing frequent blackouts, unaccept able levels of poverty and the climate crisis”. “In essence, this investment plan is the first of its kind in both scale and ambition. It provides a vision of a future South Africa, which is a leading player in a new, low carbon global economy,” said Ramaphosa. The plan targets three priorities. R1-trillion (66%) of the finance is earmarked for the electricity sector: decommissioning the ageing coal fleet, deploying renewable energy at scale and modernising the grid, with an additional R60.4-billion (4.0%) earmarked for creating greener job opportunities for workers in affected coal-rich regions. 22% of the investment plan is for the develop ment of a green hydrogen sector, which would “decarbonise South African industry and generate clean fuels for export”, while the remaining 8.0% will be used to create an electric vehicle sector and to transform and upgrade South Africa’s vehicle manufacturing capacity. All of which “will be opened up to consultation and can be amended,” Ramaphosa said. Last year Glasgow, France, Germany, the UK, the US and the EU announced an $8.5-billion, R150-million package of grants and concessional finance for South Africa to accelerate the retirement of coal plants and the deployment of renewable en ergy. “While this will play an important catalytic role, it is not sufficient to meet the scale of our ambition,” Ramaphosa said. More importantly, “a significantly larger grant funding component” was needed, since less than 4% of the money (R9.0-billion) is planned for delivery as grants, while the remaining 96% is in the form of concessional loans that attract long term interest. South Africa, said Ramaphosa, lacks financing for R700-billion or 44%of the investment it needs and is working to secure more funding from international partners, the private sector and donors. “By releasing this plan, we are placing the ball firmly in the court of the international commu nity, particularly developed-economy countries that have, through their own industrialisation, contributed greatly to the damage of our climate,” Ramaphosa told the commission, adding that partner governments needed to delivermore concessional fi nance. The plan "can really only be fully and properly

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