The South African Renewables Initiative, or SARi, which will seek to catalyse international financing for South African renewable energy projects and industries, will be officially launched at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) climate conference later this year.

Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Thandi Tobias-Pokolo presented the SARi vision at the Global Green Growth Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week, indicating that it could complement South Africa’s contribution to global negotiations with immediate and practical domestic action.

Through a combination of low-cost loans and risk guarantee instruments from international sources, the scheme could help mitigate the burden on the South Africa economy, fiscus and the consumer of a large-scale renewables programme.

It could also assist the country in meeting its target of reducing its emissions trajectory to 34% below business as usual by 2020, and to 42% by 2025.

Further, it could stimulate the upscaling of renewables in the energy mix beyond the 17 000 MW outlined in the Integrated Resource Plan 2010, while potentially creating 40 000 green-industry jobs and “decarbonise exports by up to 30%”.