Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Dr Dion George has promised “wide consultation” on South Africa’s next nationally determined contribution (NDC) decarbonisation pledge that will be lodged with the United Nations next year.

Delivering his maiden Budget Vote, George stressed that South Africa remained a responsible global citizen and committed to the multilateral rules-based regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement.

His speech followed sign-off by previous Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy on an appeal by Eskom regarding ongoing non-compliance by Eskom coal power stations with minimum emission standards (MES); a decision that could have an impact on South Africa meeting its prevailing NDC commitment.

Creecy’s decision followed an appeal of the National Air Quality Officer’s October 2023 MES decision, which Eskom said would lead to the shutting of 30 000 MW of capacity, as the cost of retrofitting the plants to meet air-pollution limits would be a prohibitive R300-billion.

“We are preparing our second nationally determined contribution through technical work and then wide consultation, [and] will take into account the outcome of the first global stocktake, and communicate another fair and ambitious contribution in 2025.”

George, who is one of the Democratic Alliance Ministers in the government of national unity, also reaffirmed his commitment to implementing a just energy transition.

“We plan to accelerate investment in renewable-energy projects.

“We need to strengthen our transmission grid and with our abundance of solar, wind and mineral resources, we are well positioned to generate jobs in renewable energy, green hydrogen, green steel, electric vehicles and other green products.

“A particular focus is Mpumalanga where many livelihoods are at risk, and we remain committed to facilitating new industries, new economic opportunities and sustainable jobs,” George said.

Meanwhile, he committed his department to finalising all environmental impact assessment (EIA) applications within the regulated timeframe during 2024/25 financial year.

He said decisions on 320 EIA applications were issued in 2023/24, 99% of which were issued within the regulated timeframe.

“As a means to enable the country’s response to the energy situation, the department made a commitment to finalise energy generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure applications within 57 days from the receipt of the final report,” he confirmed.

He reported that 80.5% of energy generation, transmission and distribution applications were issued on time after the receipt of the final report, enabling a generation potential of 51 358 MW of energy within the regulated timeframe.