Addressing climate change will not be achieved without a massive willingness to change how South Africans currently do their jobs and live their lives, and will require unprecedented innovation, says business organisation Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso.

"The challenge is that there will be trade-offs. Jobs are going to be lost in some parts of the economy as we shift from carbon-intensive forms of production to manufacturing based on renewable energy. We must ensure that those who lose [their jobs] have a stake in new activities that will arise.

"However, if we fail this challenge, change will come anyway and will just be destructive as weather patterns change. We need to have the maturity and foresight to act now to limit the risks of a chaotic and unmanageable process unfolding," she said.

The pace at which the country will have to transition its economy to reduce its carbon emissions has sharply increased, in a formal sense, through the commitments South Africa made to the international community in the form of the Nationally Determined Contribution, and through the expectations that many stakeholders have for business and government to work towards net-zero emissions by 2050, said Mavuso in a weekly newsletter.

"If we are going to deliver on these targets, we have to pull together as a country. We will need all social partners to commit," she emphasised.

The deal announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last week of a commitment by France, Germany, the UK, the US and the Europoean Union to fund R131-billion to support the transition of South Africa was extremely important, Mavuso said.

"I was pleased to see [trade union federation] Cosatu signal its support for the deal. Its members, and workers across the economy, will need to embrace the changes we face.

"That is ultimately how we protect jobs and ensure communities are not left behind in the transition. We need to find ways to direct economic activity back to the towns that currently rely on coal mining and power generation. There are technological solutions supported by the fact that grid capacity is shaped around those production areas," she said.

Businesses obviously have an important role to play. State-owned power utility Eskom of course is critical because of its high reliance on coal-based power generation.

Eskom CEO André de Ruyter has set out a clear and ambitious plan for Eskom to transition its activities that is tied into a wider overhaul of the electricity supply sector. It is an example of the kind of ambitious thinking all South African businesses must be committed to, said Mavuso.

There is a great deal for business to do to meet the challenge of the transition. South Africa needs to diversify its own energy sources and promote the use of renewables. The amended Electricity Regulation Act that allows companies to build up to 100 MW plants without a licence enables many companies to embrace technologies, such as rooftop solar, to reduce carbon emissions, lower costs and get better electricity reliability too.

"This transition has to be managed appropriately. We need to take advantage of the opportunities presented on the supply side.

"We must ensure that we build a domestic green technology industry to drive industrial development on the back of greening our economy. The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) has been able to stimulate some local production, but there is a much wider opportunity as many businesses begin procuring their own plant," she said.

All stakeholders need to work together to ensure this opportunity is not missed. It is critical to providing the jobs and economic security that must substitute for those at risk from the transition, she emphasised.

"As organised business, we are ready to join labour, civil society and government to drive this transition. I look forward to working with counterparts to ensure we maximise the opportunities and manage the risks from the transition, particularly to ensure workers and communities do not lose out. We will need tenacity, creativity and a willingness to change. As COP26 concludes, let us prepare to get to work."

Further, South Africa, in a sense, is lucky that renewable energy sources have fallen in price so dramatically. The results of the fifth round of the REIPPPP confirmed this. Solar photovoltaic came in at an average cost of 42c/kWh and wind at 37c/kWh.

This is considerably cheaper than traditional energy production. Eskom’s electricity operating costs alone are 90.5c/kWh, which ignores the capital cost of building power stations.

There can be no debate now that the REIPPPP is reducing average costs for Eskom, and low-cost renewable energy generation means the transition, as a whole, will be cheaper than it would have been in the past, said Mavuso.