EMALAHLENI, South Africa (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with local officials in South Africa’s coal mining region of Mpumalanga on Friday, pledging America’s firm support to make sure the country’s transition to renewable energy doesn’t leave them behind.
Yellen said she would meet later Friday with philanthropists and personal sector officials to debate their plans to back the huge project geared toward phasing out fossil fuel use.
America, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union backed South Africa’s “Just Energy Transition Partnership,” or JETP, in late 2021 with a combined $8.5 billion, but the entire cost might be ten times that prime.
“The financial package of $8.5 billion is a considerable down payment,” she said in remarks prepared for her meeting with women on the U.S.-funded Top of the World Training Center.
“Importantly, it’s designed to mobilize additional money from the private sector and philanthropies, and I’ll meet with representatives from each groups later today,” she said.
Yellen provided no details on how much additional funding might be leveraged from private donors and industry.
South Africa’s plan calls for job retraining and reskilling, money payments to support displaced employees, redevelopment of former coal mines and coal power plants as clean energy production sites and other productive uses, in addition to investment in roads, rail, ports, and digital infrastructure.
“America’ commitment to the energy transition being ‘just’ is firm. That’s the reason President Biden made an extra commitment to President Ramaphosa of $45 million in grant funding to support South Africa’s efforts,” Yellen said.
Owing to its reliance on coal for electricity, South Africa is the world’s 14th biggest carbon emitter, three places ahead of Britain, an economy seven and a half times the dimensions, in response to data from the Global Carbon Atlas.
But President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to transition South Africa away from coal and towards renewable energy has divided the governing African National Congress (ANC). Union leaders allied to the party fear massive job losses within the coal belt that they doubt the renewables business will have the opportunity to plug.
The Treasury secretary had a “frank” exchange of views with each Ramaphosa and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe — a vocal defender of keeping South Africa’s coal mines and power stations open — in regards to the partnership, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, told reporters on Thursday.
They agreed on the necessity to transition to a low-carbon-emission economy, but raised questions on how they might get there and on what timetable, he said.
Yellen is wrapping up a three-country visit to Africa, with stops in Senegal and Zambia, that’s geared toward deepening U.S. economic ties with the continent and countering China’s long dominance of trade and lending with many African nations.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Tim Cocks and Toby Chopra)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
