CDC Group launches the report on ‘Towards a Just Transition Finance Roadmap for India’. The report builds on current momentum around the just transition in India and focuses particularly on the role of India’s financial system. This report aims to contribute to the collective understanding of how to finance a just transition in India and outlines the investment opportunities that can deliver on social and climate objectives.
Participants in the Panel
- Nick Robins, Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance, Grantham Institute at the LSE
- Priyanka Dhingra, Senior Manager - ESG Research, SBI Mutual Fund
- Neha Kumar, India Programme Manager, Climate Bonds Initiative
- Srestha Banerjee, Director, Just Transition, iFOREST
- Chantal Naidoo, Founder and Executive Director, Rabia Transitions Initiative and Associate Faculty, University of Sussex Science Policy Research Institute (SPRU)
In this discussion, Chantal speaks on how to make justice a driver of the transition rather than a follower. Currently, in South Africa, the environment drives the just transition journey, and we face a critical point in our response especially our energy system as we are largely reliant on fossil fuels despite solar resources.
Chantal further highlights that South Africa’s energy system is entirely around Eskom, a power utility that manages distribution, generation, and transmission and it’s a kingpin in how the inclusive and just process unfolds. Institutionally SA further faces challenges of debt levels and aging infrastructure which all lead to energy blackouts. This all needs a sense of urgency and raised edge need for SA to transition technologically and doing this in a just way is very critical.
Touching on the Paris Agreement, Chantal states that SA’s response to it, is firmly focused on achieving a just transition and SA is the only country that has added this as a prerequisite in our NDC’s. Institutionally the focus on the Just Transition is represented at the highest level as it is the primary focus of the newly established presidential climate commission.
