ESTHER BUTHELEZI: Automotive OEMs can be important cog in SA’s just energy transition

November’s 2024 UN Climate Conference (COP29) in Baiku, Azerbaijan, was seen as a crucial stepping stone for action on climate change. Yet, after 10 days of deliberations including about 65,000 world leaders, scientists, media, activists and lobbyists, the outcomes are widely seen as mediocre at best, and dismal at worst.

Critics have lined up to list the conference’s shortcomings. Of particular relevance to this audience: the tripling of climate mitigation finance for developing countries. Sounds good, but the $300bn is far short of the $1.3-trillion that it is estimated will be needed to help the developing world, primarily in the Global South, deal with the what’s ahead for our warming world.   

The World Economic Forum report on COP29’s outcomes was downbeat, acknowledging that the conference “was polarised about the global commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and move forward on the COP28 energy targets. Regrettably, the final outcome did not make explicit reference to transitioning away from fossil fuels.” 

Some have suggested the entire format of the COP conferences should be overhauled. It seemed remarkable how little agreement there was on solutions to what everyone — except a few flat-earther laypeople — agree is a catastrophe that is already happening. Because, make no mistake, climate change is the defining crisis of our time, irrespective of your line of business. Those who believe that’s an exaggeration could be faulted for not paying attention to the facts.  

The journal Nature reported that rising temperatures are already aggravating extreme weather events, including droughts, storms and floods, leading to unprecedented wildfires, soil loss, rising sea levels and crop failures. These incidents will alter the lives of more than 145-million people in the Global South by 2050.  

Bear in mind that these are the sober, measured findings of scientists, not folk with placards. Their sense of urgency is driven by the acceleration in temperature rises in the air and oceans.   

The World Meteorological Organisation issued a “red alert” over “the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbocharged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere ... 2015-2024 will be the warmest 10 years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world.”  

These warnings have led to an entirely new field of research. What are the upper limits survivable by humankind and the natural systems that support us? Part of what researchers are grappling with is that there are no benchmarks. Humankind has simply never had to deal with anything like this.  

Part of what’s made it difficult to get consensus on a way forward is geopolitical: the World Bank reports that only one tenth of the world’s greenhouse gases are emitted by the 74 lowest-income countries, but they will be most affected by climate change. “Compared to the 1980s, they have already experienced approximately eight times as many natural disasters in the past 10 years. By 2050, unchecked climate change might force more than 200-million people to migrate within their own countries, pushing up to 130-million people into poverty and unravelling decades of hard-won development achievements.” 

So far, so sobering. But of what import is that to a carmaker? Well, everything. None of us, irrespective of our day job or the title on our office door, will be unaffected by climate change. So we should heed the ethos of Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” 

For all the bleakness of the future described above, there’s much that can be done, and much of it is already in motion, even though we have little to no control over global legislators’ political will, or perhaps lack of it.  

For example, major industrial energy users going off-grid gives SA latitude to grow its renewable energy mix and expand its grid while avoiding load-shedding. It provides an important opportunity for automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEMs) and other major industries to play both a catalytic and symbiotic role in SA’s just energy transition.

By investing in renewables, they can relieve pressure on the grid, which will allow Eskom’s newly formed National Transmission Company latitude to install 14,500km of new transmission lines to bring 56GW of new green energy online by 2034, primarily in the wind- and sun-rich Eastern, Western and Northern Cape.  

These “electricity freeways” will have a major role in SA achieving energy-security and will transform our energy landscape, but will require an enormous acceleration in the construction of powerlines, substations and other infrastructure if the targets stated above are to be met.  

Again, business has a role here. Advances in battery-storage technology and the economies of scale of renewables now mean going off-grid — and having that option — has no downside in terms of financial sustainability, in addition to the environmental benefits of cutting emissions from burning coal and other fossil-fuels.

By reducing reliance on the energy utility’s supply, businesses — especially energy-intensive industry sectors like OEMs — reduce the necessity for load-shedding and its concomitant gut-punch to economic growth and business and investor confidence.     

Ford SA installed solar PV carports for 3,610 vehicles at our Silverton plant, giving us access to 30,226 solar panels to generate 13.5MW of emissions-free electricity for our operations. We’re not the only business to make such investments, obviously, and going off-grid, even partially, isn’t dependent on the end of all shedding.    

Business reducing its reliance on energy from fossil fuels also lends impetus to SA’s just energy transition plan, which will move the country’s energy sector away from coal and towards cleaner, renewable energy sources. The just energy transition is a key part of the country’s climate strategy and aims to ensure that communities and people who rely on high-emitting industries are not abandoned economically.

The transition is expected to create new jobs, improve access to affordable energy and develop local skills. Properly planned and executed, it could be that most elegant of solutions, good for people, business and the planet.  

In contrast to the underwhelming outcomes of COP29, SA’s business and manufacturing sector, in partnership with other role players, could help to achieve something that evaded the conference’s disappointed delegates — a greener, more pro-poor pathway out of humankind’s existential crisis.

That opportunity, and the price we pay for not grasping it, drives home the imperative for action by anyone with capacity to act. Roosevelt would agree.  

• Buthelezi is government affairs & transformation director at Ford Motor Company of SA.