Unlocking South Africa’s Green Growth Potential – SARi Update Briefing
The South African Renewables Initiative (SARi) is a South African Government initiative developed by the Ministers of Trade and Industry and Public Enterprises and integrated as part of the work program of the Renewables Working Group of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Energy and the Industrial Policy Action Plan Task Team. The initiative was started in early 2010 to determine whether and how South Africa’s renewables ambitions could be substantially increased as part of its broader industrial and economic strategy. Its task is to define an industrial strategy for securing the economic gains from an ambitious program of renewables development, including financing and associated institutional arrangements, that would not impose an unacceptable burden on South Africa’s economy, public finances or citizens. Visit the SARi website.
Published by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) the briefing – Unlocking South Africa’s Green Growth Potential – the South African Renewables Initiative - has been prepared by a team supporting the development of SARi, working with the Department for Trade and Industry, the Department for Public Enterprises (DPE) and WWF South Africa. Dr Edwin Ritchkin, Special Project Advisor to the Ministers of Public Enterprise provides oversight and guidance on behalf of the Minister of Trade and Industry. The team is led by Simon Zadek. A summary of the briefing update is also available.
The briefing outlines the core design and economic model of SARi – which over the past year, has been developed and road tested through commissioned research and extensive consultation with experts and key stakeholders in the public and private sector. This has included workshops with government officials, industry and technology experts, and public and private finance providers, both in South Africa and internationally. It has also benefited from international support and knowledge networks such as those coordinated by Project Catalyst, Deutsche Bank ‘Get FiT’ Initiative, and the World Economic Forum’s ‘Critical Mass’ Project.
Simon presented the update briefing as a case study at the Deutsche Bank and UNEP Finance Initiative workshop on GET FiT: De-risking Clean Energy Business Models in a Developing Country Context – that took place as part of the World Climate Summit in Cancun. Below is a slideshow of the presentation which is also available as a PDF download.
Unlocking South Africa’s Green Growth Potential builds on a working paper released earlier in 2010 by the same team, in association with WWF South Africa, with funding from the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and support from the Climate Works Foundation through Project Catalyst. The working paper SARi – Advancing South Africa’s Low Carbon Industrial and Economic Strategy sets out the case and recommendations for enhancing South Africa’s industrial and economic policies by responding to climate change and associated risks and opportunities. It was prepared for the DTI and the DPE of the Government of South Africa.
Further resources in this area:
Simon Zadek participated at an array of events and meetings at Cancun including: the DB and UNEP GET FiT workshop, Green Solutions@COP16 – Cancun Dialogue series in partnership with the World Economic Forum – both of which featured SARi in the discussions; the ICTSD Symposium on the role of trade and markets in addressing climate change and sustainable development; and a side-event on innovative experiences from Latin America in response to climate change, which featured Brazil’s Amazon Fund.
A background paper – ICT and Low Carbon Growth in China - developed for the Digital Energy Solutions Campain (DESC) China by Simon Zadek, Maya Forstater, Kelly Yu and Jon Kornik presents a quantitative analysis of the impacts of ICT on low carbon growth in China, and includes insights with key Chinese and international policy and industrial research groups on the possible policy measures and initiatives that could secure the contribution of ICT to reducing China’s carbon footprint whilst promoting scientific development.
From Climate Finance to Financing Green Growth outlines the benefits of green growth and the importance of developing the right policies to support a transition towards the low carbon economy. It assesses the financing needs of green growth in developing countries, the role of the financing described by the UN High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change (AGF) and how the climate finance systems should develop over the next decade. It finishes by illustrating why climate finance needs to be framed in the wider context of growth and development finance.
Simon Zadek together with Maya Forstater and Fernanda Polacow have been working with the Amazon Fund over the past two years to understand the lessons learned from the development, design and early implementation of the initiative. Supported by Fundación Avina, the findings are summarised in a working paper Amazon Fund: Radical Simplicity and Bold Ambition – Insights for Building National Institutions for Low Carbon Development. This paper builds on an earlier study by the same team: Radical Simplicity in Designing National Climate Institutions: Lessons from the Amazon Fund (2009)
