South Africa Is Key to Global Net Zero
Restructuring its enormous, but financially toxic public utility will produce a climate roadmap for the developing world.
An Eskom coal-fired power station in Delmas, Mpumalanga province, South Africa.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/BloombergWhat can rich countries do to help the developing world battle climate change? What’s happening in South Africa right now embodies that central question of fairness.
Africa’s third largest economy is also the world’s 12th most serious emitter of carbon dioxide. At COP26 in Glasgow last November — where I worked with the British government — the UK, US, France, Germany and the rest of the EU joined together to allocate $8.5 billiion in seed money to South Africa. It’s the world’s first Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), a crucial effort to ease the economic and social disruptions that poorer countries face as they attempt to lower their carbon footprints.