Business Day - 8 March 2021 by Neva Makgetla (TIPS Senior Economist)

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ESI Africa - 10 March 2021 by Theresa Smith

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Business Day TV - 10 March 2021 by Michael Avery

Michael Avery talks to a panel about the demand for bioplastics in SA

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Business Day TV - 15 March 2021 by Michael Avery

Michael Avery talks to a panel about SA’s hydrogen economy ambitions

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Business Day - 22 March 2021 by Neva Makgetla (TIPS Senior Economist)

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Engineering News - 25 March 2021 by Terence Creamer

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ESI Africa - 26 March 2021 by Theresa Smith

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Fin 24 - 29 March 2021 by Lameez Omarjee

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ESI Africa - 30 March 2021 by Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl

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Fin 24 - 31 March 2021 by Lameez Omarjee

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Business Day - 5 April 2021 by Neva Makgetla (TIPS Senior Economist)

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Business Day TV - 15 April 2021 by Michael Avery

Michael Avery chats to his expert guests about the the growing market for electric vehicles and its sustainability within the SA economy in the future

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Business Day - 19 April 2021 by Neva Makgetla (TIPS Senior Economist)

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Business Day - 3 May 2021 by Neva Makgetla (TIPS Senior Economist)

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SUMMARY: The briefing paper aims to give clarity to the terminology “Just Transition” and related concepts like “growth”, “economic democracy” and “second generation rights” within the context of the current South African political economic model. The paper notes the structural dysfunctions of the South African economy and how the economic model is failing to achieve South Africa’s developmental and environmental goals of sustainability. The paper identifies the challenges and opportunities of achieving a Just Transition to a low-carbon economy and the key issues which need to be mainstreamed in policies and negotiations to ensure that adaptation and mitigation interventions promote economic democracy.

KEY FINDING / RECOMMENDATIONS: The paper presents the developmental state as an economic model to support a Just Transition and highlights enabling conditions provided by the International Trade Union Confederation and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions. These include Investing in environmentally friendly activities that create decent jobs that pay living wages, meet health and safety standards, promote gender equity, and that are secure; putting in place comprehensive social protections for the most vulnerable; researching the impacts of climate change on employment and livelihoods; and developing skills and retraining workers to ensure that they can be part of the new low-carbon development model.

SUMMARY: The report provides a segmented view of the net direct job creation expected in the formal economy across a wide range of technologies/activities that may be classified as green or contributing to the greening of the economy. The report aims to contribute to strategic planning. It highlights implementation challenges to unlock the green economy`s potential. It brings to the fore the importance of stakeholder interventions to develop competitive advantage in specific green areas. The report covers 26 industries including the energy generation, energy and resource efficiency, emission and pollution mitigation, and natural resource management sectors.

KEY FINDING / RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations for greening the economy should result in expansions of productive capacity and service delivery across a wide spectrum of economic sectors, although contractions may be experienced in others. This should be progressively supported by investment activity and result in meaningful employment creation. A growing green economy should also translate into opportunities for localisation of production, either by using existing production capabilities, or the establishing new capacity.

SUMMARY: This case study examines the 100 MW Eskom (CSP) power tower plant in Upington being developed by Eskom. The report analyses in detail what worked and what did not in the project’s financial, political and technological risk management and aims to inform the efforts of public entities such as national governments and Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) to design national and international public finance programs to deploy CSP and other emerging technologies

KEY FINDING / RECOMMENDATIONS: The report notes , among other findings, that the Eskom CSP project in South Africa is one of the most ambitious and technically challenging CSP projects in development outside the US both in its proposed technology choice (power tower), generating capacity (100 MW), and the 9-12 hours of storage. Eskom relied on political support and concessional lending from international financial institutions to develop the CSP. However, foreign debt implied additional risks for the utility. Public sources of finance are essential to bridge the viability gap between CSP power towers and cheaper alternatives.