SUMMARY: Finance is essential to implement effective climate action. A just transition requires transition finance as a component of finance for climate action - to protect the adequacy of energy supply and to mitigate negative economic, employment and social impacts during transition - supporting both an accelerated phasing-out of coal and development that sustains livelihoods in affected regions like Mpumalanga. The paper aims to contribute to better understanding of ways to quantity of international and domestic finance for climate action and shift the direction of investment in South Africa. The scope of the paper has South Africa as its geographical focus. It examines finance flows at the national scale and considers international dimensions only where relevant to the country. The scope in relation to policy is broad, it considers government policy instruments across national departments and local government, a finance and fiscal tool-kit, the governance and institutional landscape that enable and direct finance flows, and policies that can guide investments in development of human and institutional capacity.
KEY FINDINGS / RECOMMENDATIONS: The paper reports that government has adopted a definition of sustainable finance, and is working on a Green Finance Taxonomy for South Africa and climate budget tagging. In assessing initial bottom-up estimates of finance needs for both mitigation and adaptation, the paper finds that the overall cumulative investment requirement for mitigation ranges from R460-760 billion. It suggests several possible ways to increase the quantity of international and domestic finance for climate action and shift the direction of flows in South Africa. The government needs to engage more proactively with international climate finance providers to scale up adaptation finance. Aligning policy is critical to avoid incoherence. Greater co-ordination, clear policy signals - for both adaption and mitigation should be sent. Possible options for coordination have been described - horizontally across different constituencies, and also across line-functions in national government, as well as vertically, across spheres of government.