COP27 Side Event: Competing Narratives in Energy Transitions

Energy transitions are fraught with uncertainty and competing priorities. For South Africa an energy transition must be least cost, within a reasonable carbon budget and must contribute to lifting people out of poverty, inequality and unemployment. These transitions are subject to significant political, technical and market uncertainty which leads to a range of narratives describing potential transition pathways. Notably in South Africa this is most heated around the role of gas in our transition.

The event will host several proponents of different perspectives on energy transitions in South Africa and will deal with questions around justice, technology choice, governance and finance of a just energy transition. What for example is the role of domestic gas exploitation and its contribution to energy security and job creation? How quickly can South Africa be feasibly expected to transition? How do we navigate what the nation sees as possible and conditional offers of support?

The event will also describe some of the robust modelling studies that have been conducted in South Africa as well as consider these narratives in comparison to the recently released Just Energy Transition Partnership Investment Plan. South African narratives need to be contextualised in the global context of global energy futures and energy modelling. Critical to this international perspective is a perspective from international groups like the International Energy Agency and the World Bank. Notably the event will discuss the recently launched World Bank Country Climate Change Development Report (CCDR) for South Africa and contextualise this within other CCDRs from around the world. This will give us a perspective on how comparable South Africa’s energy narratives are in comparison to global and regional narratives.

Facilitator: Steve Nicholls

Speakers:

• Dr Andrew Marquard, UCT ESRG
• Stephane Hallegatte, World Bank Global Coordinator for CCDRs
• Mr Tim Gould, International Energy Agency
• James McKay, CEO SA Energy Council
• Joanne Yawitch, NBI, NPC and JET-P Secretariat
• Hlengiwe Radebe, WWF South Africa