South Africa is set to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, taking place in Egypt next month. Once there, South Africa will present its plans for cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. This comes from South Africa’s Environment Minister Barbara Creecy.
South Africa is 13th on the list of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. This puts the country in an awkward position. One of the proposed plans involves the closure of at least ten Eskom Power Stations. Another is the spending of plenty of donated money to focus on expanding South Africa’s EV market.
Goodbye power stations, you won’t be missed
If the country isn’t able to reduce its greenhouse emissions, it could deter foreign investment (which is a bad thing). Companies in India and Italy are some of South Africa’s biggest buyers of forest fibres. Those companies have agreed to stop purchasing from South Africa if it isn’t able to cut its carbon footprint in half by 2030.
“What we are sincerely hoping is that it will create appetite from the private sector and we will begin to mobilize the significant quantities of financing that we are going to need over the next 10 years,” continued Creecy.
Going green – for a price
We do know a little more about the country’s proposal to spend a lot of someone else’s money on building electric vehicles. The problem is, the countries providing the funding aren’t impressed with the direction South Africa wants to take the money. The funds were pledged last year, which total around $8.5 billion (R153.7 billion), in order to help the country pull away from its dependence on coal.
Read More: South Africa wants to pull away from coal – Germany pledges R6.2 billion to help get there
According to sources close to the deal, the funders aren’t too keen on the idea. It was said that the funders would only offer grants for studies within the EV industry to see whether it would be a viable option.
The plan includes an expenditure of around R128 billion on EVs, with a far smaller amount going into industrial development and innovation programmes. The updated proposal would supposedly see the entirety of the money spent within five years.
Whether the UN accepts any of the proposals presented at the summit remains to be seen. The summit will last a total of 12 days, starting on 6 November and ending on 18 November. Both proposals will be released for public comment soon after the summit’s end.
Source: Bloomberg