{"id":827350,"date":"2025-06-09T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=827350"},"modified":"2025-06-09T09:46:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T07:46:04","slug":"over-420000-jobs-in-south-africa-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/827350\/over-420000-jobs-in-south-africa-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 420,000 jobs in South Africa at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa\u2019s key export industries are becoming increasingly vulnerable as climate policies like cross-border carbon taxes take hold, according to a study by Net Zero Tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 422,000 South African jobs<\/strong> are supported by exports to countries with active or incoming carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM), Net Zero Tracker\u2019s researchers wrote in the report, released Monday CET.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxes have \u201cimplications for jobs, inequality and tackling poverty in one of the world\u2019s most unequal societies,\u201d they added, while urging wealthier countries to support South Africa\u2019s path to decarbonization.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon border adjustment mechanisms, or CBAMs, are designed to reduce emissions by ensuring imports are subject to the same surcharges as domestically produced goods that use carbon-intensive methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The European Union, South Africa\u2019s second-biggest trade partner after China, will start levying charges through its CBAM next year. The UK plans to follow suit and countries including Australia and Japan are also considering introducing measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bad for South Africa,\u201d said John Lang<\/a>, the project\u2019s lead at Net Zero Tracker, which is run by four organizations including the UK\u2019s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit<\/a>. \u201cThe rubber is going to hit the road next year.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has joined India and Brazil in protesting against CBAMs, which they see as a form of\u00a0protectionism<\/a>. It has threatened to raise a\u00a0complaint<\/a>\u00a0with the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa relies on coal for about four-fifths of its electricity<\/a> generation and thus has the most carbon-intensive<\/a> economy among the Group of 20 major economies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s basic metals sector, which accounted for almost a third of its exports in 2023, \u201chas nearly twice the embodied carbon dioxide emissions of its next most carbon-intensive peer country,\u201d Net Zero Tracker said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If CBAMs expand beyond raw materials, as the researchers expect, other South African industries will be at risk. Its automotive sector has the second-highest emissions in the world and its agricultural producers create three times the emissions of some peer countries, the researchers found.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total, 78% of South Africa\u2019s exports go to countries that have net zero targets, according to the study. Those exports support 1.2 million jobs in total.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor South Africa, this is both a warning and an opportunity,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cDecarbonising production is not just a climate imperative \u2014 it\u2019s a strategic necessity for maintaining global competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the cross-border carbon taxes create immediate risks, South Africa also has economic advantages including renewable energy resources, critical minerals and access to major trade and diplomatic frameworks, they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the world\u2019s largest reserves of manganese and chromium, used to make fuel cells, South Africa has an opportunity to develop as a strategic supplier for the global energy transition, the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration across the main BRICS economies \u2014 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa \u2014 could help establish new supply chains, they added.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International investment will also be critical to the economy\u2019s decarbonization, they added. Net Zero Tracker urged South Africa to take advantage of its $8.3 billion climate finance\u00a0pact<\/a>\u00a0with some of the world\u2019s richest nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Just Energy Transition Partnership, signed in 2021 between South Africa and countries including France and Germany, is designed to provide concessional funding to reduce South Africa\u2019s reliance on coal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in October the country\u2019s presidency said there was a shortage of investable projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the ECIU, Net Zero Tracker is run by Oxford Net Zero<\/a>, the Data-Driven EnviroLab<\/a> and the NewClimate Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report shows that export markets that support hundreds of thousands of South African jobs are adopting policies that threaten these positions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":670357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827364,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827350\/revisions\/827364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}