Minister Dion George: Opening remarks at 8th Ministerial Meeting on Climate Action

Excellencies,

Allow me to take this opportunity to convey our gratitude to the organizers of this meeting, namely, China, Canada and the European Union.

It is an honour for me, as the new Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment under South Africa’s recently formed Government of National Unity, to address this important meeting. I look forward to working with all of you.

South Africa remains firmly committed to contributing its fair share to addressing the global climate crisis. Coming from a background in finance and project implementation, I will work with international partners and national stakeholders on practical, realistic and affordable ways to enhance our climate action, including through our next ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. Already, southern Africa is amongst most impacted regions due to multiple factors, including heavy dependence on climate sensitive sectors, low adaptive capacity, poverty and underdevelopment, and limited access to finance and technology. We cannot make our societies more sustainable and resilient and avoid loss and minimize damage without the appropriate scale of public finance that does not exacerbate the indebtedness of our countries, or without the support of the private sector.

South Africa, like most other African and developing countries, is facing a very serious economic situation, with pressing development challenges including high unemployment and poverty rates. The climate crisis is adding another setback on our development path, and we appeal for international solidarity and support.

At the same time, the economic transition to a low carbon future presents an unprecedented opportunity for transformative change. We are faced with a number of transitions, including the energy transition – driven by changing economics and technology; a transport transition towards electric mobility; transitions in industry and agriculture, and transitions which are driven by climate change impacts in agriculture and other sectors. We are clear that we must leave no one behind and ensure that workers and communities benefit from these transitions and are not its victims. We are therefore fully committed to the vision of the COP28 UAE Consensus of all-of-economy and all-of society just transition pathways, that address both the international and national dimensions of climate justice and international equity. Fair trade and reform of the global financial architecture are amongst the key international enablers.

South Africa engages in this context by ensuring that we safeguard our development gains and address our development challenges, by making maximum use of the opportunities of these transitions and managing the risks. These include ensuring that we create jobs in the new sectors as we lose them in sectors such as coal; we localize value chains for green technologies where economically feasible; we beneficiate the massive critical mineral wealth of our land and benefit from it, unlike in our recent past, when others were the key beneficiaries of South Africa’s mineral wealth; and transform our agricultural, health and water systems to adapt to climate change.

International support for just transitions is critical, and a technical assessment of options to finance these transitions is essential. So is the need to shift financial flows away from carbon-intensive to renewable energy sources, taking full account of divergent national circumstances and capacities. Such alignments must support just transitions in developing countries, and in particular innovative ways to finance the just transition pathways, which do not result in unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratios and stunted economic growth. Supporting just transition pathways and making financial flows consistent with these pathways will benefit South Africa by increasing access to investment flows tied to the global low-carbon shift.

Our Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan sets out the scale of financing needed (R1,5 trillion over the initial 5 years) to meet the country’s climate change mitigation targets as committed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and ensure a just energy transition for affected regions, communities, employees and industries.  

Excellencies
To further respond to the call from the United Nations Secretary-General for more mitigation ambition and building resilience of our societies and economy, South Africa is in the process of developing its 2nd Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Ambitious NDC goals in mitigation and adaptation will require ambitious support. This was clearly emphasised by the outcome of the GST in Dubai.

Therefore, the outcome of COP 29 should be based on intensified efforts in unpacking the quantum of resources required that will enable developing countries to respond to the calls to enhance collective climate ambition and to achieve the ambitious conditional targets as contained in their NDCs and the NAPs. It also remains critical for developed countries to take the lead, up to 2030 as per the Glasgow, Sharm el Sheikh, and Dubai outcomes.

In short, the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) to be adopted at COP29 should be a clear quantification of finance that reflects expected actions to be taken by developing countries in line with their NDCs including NAPs, low emission development plans, national development plans and frameworks and other relevant policy documents. It should also be reflective of inclusive just transition pathways, in line with Parties’ individual and nationally determined socio-economic development priorities.

Finally, we need access to scaled-up, new, additional and predictable, fit for purpose finance, specifically grant and concessional finance, that can be deployed effectively to create enabling environments for rapid investments by buying down risks and create new asset classes for clean investments that would allow for more significant mobilization and leveraging of public and private finance.

Never before has a collective multilateral effort been more important.
I thank you.