The Trump administration’s antagonistic stance to multilateral institutions and the global climate commitments is likely to affect SA’s financing of its Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) as the largest funders of the programme, electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said.
Under the JETP several countries such as the US, Germany, France and the UK have already committed more than $11.6bn towards these efforts, but a huge funding gap remains given that an estimated R1.5-trillion is needed to implement SA’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP).
To support the country’s global climate commitments and climate change mitigation efforts SA has committed to a just transition that will include moving the energy sector from a coal power-dominated system to a less carbon-intensive, renewables-led energy mix.
“It’s going to be a difficult conversation because the Trump administration has its own views on the use of its natural endowments, the use of oil and gas and it has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement,” Ramokgopa said.
“The US had committed a pocket of about $2.9bn so we suspect that it is at risk,” Ramokgopa said, while adding that the US has however not formally communicated any intention to withdraw.
Countries that have made pledges include Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and US, while the EU has also pledged support.
Pledges made by individual countries and the EU amount to about $10bn and by multilateral development banks to $3.9bn.
Of the total, $836m is in the form of grants, $450m in highly concessional loans from the Climate Investment Funds largely intended for Eskom and the communities around power stations in Mpumalanga, $7.7bn in concessional loans mostly intended for Eskom and $3bn in commercial debt and equity to support the private sector, plus $1.9bn as export credits.
SA plans to use the Group of Twenty (G20) presidency, which runs until November 2025, to position the country as a key knowledge hub in areas of clean energy, just transition and sustainable development.
The Trump administration has placed SA in its firing line since January, beginning with halting funding to Pretoria citing the country’s land policies, and providing asylum to white SA Afrikaners.
SA has denied the claims and has sought to engage the US through diplomatic channels.
The energy technical working group of the G20 holds its first meeting from Thursday at which the US will be represented at a “director-general level”, Ramokgopa said.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent will also skip the G20 finance ministers meeting in Cape Town this week while the US secretary of state skipped the foreign ministers meeting last week, raising fears that President Donald Trump will not attend the leaders summit in November.
“They have committed to attend … we will not tire to engage with our counterparts to find each other,” Ramokgopa said.
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