By Antony Squazzin.
South Africa has been told that the pace of its energy transition is too slow by a key funder, Germany, Enviroment Minister, Dion George, said.
Germany is one of the partners in the so-called Just Energy Transition Partnership, a $9.3-billion climate finance pact between South Africa and some of the world’s richest nations.
George, who was speaking Friday at a meeting of South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission in Johannesburg, said he was cognizant that the government’s efforts to reduce its reliance on coal need to be sped up.
A delegation of German officials including international climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, were in South Africa last week.
Recent government tenders for renewable energy have largely failed because many of the winning projects proved uneconomic and a large number couldn’t go ahead because of a lack of transmission capacity. South Africa has been plagued by intermittent power cuts because of inadequate generating capacity since 2008, although there has been a recent improvement.
George is one of six DA ministers in South Africa’s 34-member cabinet, with members of the party appointed to the executive for the first time after the ANC lost a parliamentary majority it had held for three decades in May 29 elections.