Climate Symposium to address Capital barriers for SA’s JET

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The elimination of structural and financial barriers to mobilising capital at scale for South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) is expected to be the focus of the three-day Climate Resilience Symposium, which opens on Monday at the CSIR Convention Centre in Pretoria.

It will be hosted by National Treasury working with the Presidential Climate Commission and the World Bank.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the Symposium, which aims to bring together relevant departments to ensure improved government coordination, with a particular focus on financing.

Director of Environmental Economics at National Treasury, Georgina Ryan says, “We are very excited because this is an opportunity to discuss the importance of climate change issues. We have a number of objectives that we also want to achieve over these three days. We are highlighting the role of the National Treasury and climate change, the instruments that we have such as the carbon tax, and disastrous financing; and how we integrate climate objectives into the mass macro, fiscal, and financing policy. We also recognise that climate change needs to be tackled collectively with our stakeholders. So, we speak a lot about improving government coordination and also mainstreaming climate change into governmental fiscal systems.”

Climate Resilience Symposium 2024 | Spotlight will be on climate change and SA’s Just Transition

Funding

One of the government’s priorities is to tackle the effects of climate change. The issue of resilience is critical.

The funding of programmes to address this challenge often leads to fierce debate. One such debate is the phasing out of fossil fuels and the use of coal.

Developing countries have criticised developed nations for failure to deliver on commitments to assist developing countries in dealing with the challenges of climate change.

Global financial institutions were not being spared either.

The President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, says the institution is playing its part in tackling climate change on the continent.

One of the issues South Africa will grapple with at the summit is the negative impact of phasing out the use of coal.

A case in point is the closure of the Komati power station. This project was funded by the World Bank. It has left communities in the area struggling since the closure.

President Cyril Ramphosa says this is a challenging issue.

With the new government in place, the world would be watching to see whether South Africa will continue to implement its just energy transition while the country is struggling with energy supply.