A just transition is on the horizon for South Africa, claimed President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address last week as he announced the new Climate Change Response Fund. 

The fund is a collaborative effort between the government and private sector to combat the increasingly devastating impacts of the climate crisis. 

“In recent years, the country has had to confront the effects of climate change. We have had devastating wildfires in the Western Cape, destructive floods in KwaZulu-Natal, unbearable heat waves in the Northern Cape, persistent drought in the Eastern Cape and intense storms in Gauteng,” said Ramaphosa.

Read more in Daily Maverick: November breaks heat records in SA — a clear reminder of what’s to come in a warming world

This year, the Western Cape has been hit by fires and KwaZulu-Natal continues to grapple with destructive floods.

Financing to deal with the consequences of these climate-related events has been an ongoing issue on the global stage, as developing countries – many in Africa – sought to establish the United Nations Loss and Damage Fund.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Loss and damage: SA nominated to represent Africa on UN climate change fund

Climate Change Response Fund

With the UN fund only expected to be operationalised in the second quarter of 2025, South Africa will launch its own Climate Change Response Fund which will provide additional financing amid increasing competition for money to compensate for loss and damage. 

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told Daily Maverick that the amount being put into the fund would be determined “as part of the budget process and appropriated in terms of a money bill (a bill that addresses the appropriation of money)”. 

He said it had not been determined what the corporate/government financial split would be.

“[The] fund will aim to build resilience to climate change with particular focus on food security, water security and infrastructure/built environment, as well as building response capability to extreme weather events… 

“The fund is not a disaster response fund per se, but rather intended to make investments in sectors that build resilience to the effects of extreme weather events.” 

Magwenya said details around the criteria to access the fund were still being worked out. He said the fund was expected to be operational in the 2025/26 financial year. More details about the Climate Change Response Fund are expected when the Budget is delivered on 21 February.

The year 2023 was the hottest on record, scientists said, with records being broken across the globe due to a combination of rising global temperatures caused by CO2 emissions and the El Niño weather pattern. 

More recently, a study published in Nature has found that global average temperatures have surpassed the 1.5°C target and have increased by 1.7°C from pre-industrial levels.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Godongwana boosts Municipal Disaster Response and Recovery grants as climate crisis takes its toll

The Climate Change Response Fund differs from the Municipal Disaster Response Grant and Municipal Disaster Recovery Grant, which received a boost in funding in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement in November last year.

The minister said R372-million and R1.2-billion, respectively, had been added to the two funds to help repair and rehabilitate infrastructure damaged by flooding in February and March 2023. 

Climate budget tagging

The National Treasury has been working on a mechanism – Climate Budget Tagging – to track climate change public expenditure. The tool would help the government to effectively track spending and better prioritise climate action and response funding and spending.

The Treasury has piloted Climate Budget Tagging in 11 sites across the country, including national, local and provincial governments. 

Magwenya said the Treasury would expand this pilot programme, with details expected to be announced in next week’s Budget. 

Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said at the South African Investment Conference that work was in place to develop principles for tracking climate finance. 

“These frameworks will quantify and track expenditure on climate-relevant activities. They will also classify and tag public expenditure according to its expected contribution to climate change (mitigation (reduced greenhouse gas emissions) or adaptation (increased resilience and reduced loss and damage from climate change),” said Creecy. DM