Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: The Energy Council of South Africa (the Energy Council) is actively engaged on climate policy. It has expressed both supportive and unsupportive positions on the transition of the energy mix in South Africa, including supporting renewables and the continued role of fossil gas.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: The Energy Council appears broadly supportive of climate action in its top-line messaging. On its ‘About Us’ webpage, accessed in January 2025, the association shows clear support for reaching net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. On the same webpage, the association also expresses support for the Paris Agreement. Additionally, in a May 2024 press release, Energy Council CEO James Mackay appeared to recognize the need for urgent action to respond to climate change.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: The Energy Council has limited transparent engagement with climate-related regulations in 2023-2024. In a May 2024 press release, CEO James Mackay supported the South African Climate Change Act. The Act implements a framework for South Africa’s climate change response, and sets caps on emissions for large emitters and requires companies to prepare plans to reduce their emissions.
In the past, the Energy Council has been strongly unsupportive of the South African Carbon Tax Act, releasing a joint statement with other major South African industry associations in September 2022. In the statement, the associations advocated for measures that would weaken the climate ambition of the policy, including a lower tax rate from 2023-2025, free allocations and subsidies up to 2030, and a delay in increasing the carbon price until post-2035.
Positioning on Energy Transition: The Energy Council is actively engaged on the energy transition in South Africa, where it has shown support for both renewable energy and advocated for the role of fossil gas in the energy mix.
The association has developed an ‘Energy Transition Roadmap’ in which it sets out its recommendations for the country’s energy mix over the next decade. In the Roadmap, published in its June 2024 Annual Report, the association advocates for the role of fossil gas as a transition fuel from coal to renewables. It also appears to advocate for new gas infrastructure and investments, without reference to carbon capture and storage (CCS) or methane abatement. However, the Energy Council also calls for a five times increase in renewables and storage in the Roadmap.
The Energy Council’s CEO James Mackay has reiterated the association’s support for fossil gas directly to policymakers. For example, in a November 2024 briefing to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), Mackay called for the expansion of “renewable energy capacity, gas-to-power projects, and energy storage systems.” Mackay’s presentation called for 5.4GW of fossil gas by 2028, without reference to CCS or methane abatement. Mackay did however also state that renewable energy deployment in South Africa should be a minimum of 5GW per year to 2034.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q1 2025.