A LeadIT summit in support of South Africa’s commitment to the UNFCCC, its Paris Agreement & achieving net-zero emissions by 2050
Context
Industry decarbonization is critically important to the Republic of South Africa’s industrial policy and climate commitments, serving as a key pillar for achieving its 2050 net-zero goal, maintaining export competitiveness, and managing the societal impacts of a just energy transition. This also represents a significant opportunity to reposition South Africa within the evolving global landscape.
This high-level, action-oriented summit– convened under the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LEADIT) – will bring together policymakers, industry, financial institutions, carbon market practitioners, and international partners to accelerate coordinated action. It will have two overarching priority areas:
- Decarbonization of the iron and steel value chain, and
- Carbon markets, trading and pricing in implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Objectives
Structured across a full-day programme, the event will pursue three core objectives:
- Align on strategy and opportunity: Establish a shared understanding of the global green steel transition and South Africa’s strategic position within it.
- Identify structural barriers and solutions: Diagnose the key policy, financial, infrastructural, and technical constraints to green industrialization and just energy transition, and identify actionable pathways to address them from leading international precedents.
- Mobilise investment and action: Equip participants with a technically robust and commercially actionable understanding of carbon markets, carbon trading, and the integration of carbon pricing architecture with industrial decarbonization strategy; identify credible levers to unlock private capital at scale, and define priority actions across government, industry and finance.
