The Just Transition Agenda Under South Africa’s G20 Presidency

The report examines the role of South Africa's 2025 G20 presidency in advancing a 'transformational' theory of change for the climate crisis. It emphasizes 'country platforms' as a bottom-up methodology for national transition planning and argues that current global financial structures are a 'non-system' that misallocates capital and imposes an unsustainable cost of capital on developing nations, particularly in Africa. The author proposes a 'monetary architecture' approach to unlock funding by reconfiguring balance sheets, rather than relying solely on market-oriented blended finance or fiscal expansion.

• Country platforms are voluntary, country-led mechanisms designed to align national priorities and investment plans with global climate goals, avoiding the 'one-size-fits-all' frameworks often imposed by global institutions.
• The global financial architecture is described as a 'non-system' that fails to allocate capital productively and disproportionately penalizes poorer countries through high credit ratings and interest rates.
• There is a severe disparity in energy access and consumption; achieving a '2kW society' for all would require developed world consumers to reduce primary energy consumption by two-thirds while Africans and Asians triple theirs.
• Africa faces a massive annual climate financing gap, with estimates ranging from $97 billion to $240 billion, despite the continent receiving only 2% of global renewable energy investment between 2000 and 2020.
• The 'cost of capital' is a critical barrier for African nations, with some paying up to 15% interest on debt, despite the region having the lowest default rate for infrastructure projects worldwide at 5.5%.
• The author proposes a 'monetary architecture' approach to finance the green transition, which identifies 'elasticity spaces' in interlocking balance sheets to unlock capital without increasing fiscal pressure.

APA

Swilling, M. (2025). The Just Transition Agenda Under South Africa’s G20 Presidency. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SAIIA_Synthesis-4_Swilling_G20JustTransitions-1.pdf

Chicago

Swilling, Mark. The Just Transition Agenda Under South Africa’s G20 Presidency. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2025. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SAIIA_Synthesis-4_Swilling_G20JustTransitions-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Swilling |first1=Mark |title=The Just Transition Agenda Under South Africa’s G20 Presidency |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=2025 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SAIIA_Synthesis-4_Swilling_G20JustTransitions-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{swilling2025just, author = {Swilling, Mark}, title = {{The Just Transition Agenda Under South Africa’s G20 Presidency}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2025}, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SAIIA_Synthesis-4_Swilling_G20JustTransitions-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }