Shrugging off hostility from the US, South Africa’s forestry, fisheries and environment minister Dion George kicked off the first G20 sustainability meeting this year by lobbing for stronger global commitments on climate financing.
South Africa holds the presidency of the G20 until November, and its recent meetings of the world’s foreign ministers and finance ministers got off to a rough start last month when US secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent snubbed the gathering.
Further ratcheting up tensions, the US representatives who did attend in their stead blocked any agreement on climate financing proposals, frustrating finance minister Enoch Godongwana, who said he was “not happy” about the lack of consensus.
But George ignored this elephant in the room at the launch of the environmental working group at the end of March.
One of the main goals of South Africa’s G20 presidency, he said, is to “leverage opportunities to increase the scale and flows of climate finance, critical to enable the just transition, mitigation and adaptation efforts, while ensuring that the required investments reach the most vulnerable”.
It’s a hard sell to the US government – something George knows all too well, as he was a recipient in February of a letter from Dana Brown, the US chargé d’affaires in South Africa, saying that “effective immediately, the US is no longer a member of the International Partners Group for the Just Energy Transition Partnerships for Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam”.
This was in line with US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, and his belief that climate change is a “hoax”.
As a result, the US pulled about $1bn in climate finance from South Africa in March, creating a gap that was partly filled by $4.7bn in new commitments from the EU.
“We know that others are withdrawing so we want to be very clear with our support,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We are doubling down and we are here to stay.”
At the G20 sustainability event, George reiterated the need for just energy transition financing from wealthier countries. He said it is “paramount for developing-economy countries to be actively supported in their efforts” to transition to renewable energy through “scaled access to low-cost finance, technology and skills”.
Support from the G20 countries would be critical to ensuring the globe meets the 17 sustainable development goals by 2030, including on inequality and the climate – but as the clock ticks down, there is no sense that enough progress has been made on this score.
“We are still far from our goals and action targets. Poverty levels are worsening, and CO2 emissions reached record highs last year,” he said. “This calls for an urgent acceleration of our efforts. Our commitment to achieve these goals must not waver.”
South Africa will specifically use its G20 presidency to push for stronger commitments on the climate and environmental sustainability, he said, ahead of passing the baton to the White House later this year.
Glorious isolation
It almost seemed like a case of preaching to the converted, with the climate atheists very much not present, and very much not in agreement. On the sidelines of the G20 events, one attendee said he felt it was a case of “America versus the world” on climate change.
Some of the participants responded at the sustainability event with fighting talk.
Ma Jun, the former chief economist at the research bureau of the People’s Bank of China who is co-chairing the G20’s sustainable finance working group, said China would be willing to step into the role vacated by the US.
“Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement shook global confidence in climate action and the world is looking for new leaders,” he said.
Ma Jun proposed a green free-trade initiative, which would offer a steep reduction in trade barriers, including tariffs for goods and services with environmental benefits.
African countries, he said, could get a competitive trade global advantage by promoting their agricultural products as “green, and organise to gain better access and pricing in global markets”. Similarly, they could sell carbon credits to other countries.
These are noble ideas – but they come at a turning point for climate financing globally: while governments of most nations still support the principle, private sector companies, which would provide the capital for the transition and create the infrastructure, are fleeing from anything that has a green tag on it for fear of political backlash.
US banks like Goldman Sachs and others have quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance, under pressure from Trump’s administration and US lawmakers – while many executives and companies in other parts of the world are now talking of a “sensible compromise”.
Even Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister who spoke at Standard Bank’s African Markets Conference in Cape Town last month, said African countries should not abandon fossil fuels entirely, if they have abundant reserves of gas.
“It is time you took the climate change debate out of the hands of campaigners and put it in the hands of policymakers,” he said.
Yet there is value in sticking to the script – even if the US has walked out of the theatre.
Rhian-Mari Thomas, who runs the Green Finance Institute, told Bloomberg that for funders to eschew climate financing would run contrary to their long-term business interests. They ought to acknowledge the risk of a warming planet, she said.
“The need for financial institutions to meet their fiduciary duties is often cited as a reason not to pursue opportunities that are aligned with net-zero pathways,” she said. “Surely another consideration, based on science, is to ensure market integrity.”
Top image: Forestry, fisheries and environment minister Dion George. Picture: Gallo Images/Misha Jordaan.
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