A temporary global hesitation to embrace the energy transition, spurred on primarily by resistance to the idea by the US, may provide short-term advantages for corporates in sectors such as coal, South African Presidential Climate Commission climate finance and innovation head Dipak Patel said during the 2025 Coal & Energy Transition Day, in Johannesburg, on July 23.

Speaking as part of a panel, he suggested that it would be unwise for companies not to make use of this period to capitalise on available opportunities.

“What we’re seeing in the world, particularly in the US, is a short-term global shift towards a degree of resistance to undertaking a transition, even though all of the science is still pointing to the need for a sustainable transition, whether that be in energy or in the transport sector,” Patel said.

However, he cautioned against complacency and emphasised that other parts of the world continued to respond to climate challenges despite the global headwinds.

He argued that South Africa should use this moment to consolidate its assets and make strategic decisions that align with global shifts. He said the country should not use this period to delay the energy transition, but rather to bank opportunities that may arise, particularly where South Africa had natural advantages such as coal.

He encouraged accelerated progress in other parts of the political economy while making the most of the current window.

“In South Africa, if we take our cue just from what is happening in the rest of the world, I think we must use this period to consolidate what we have – to bank whatever additional opportunity might exist, both in the domestic and global markets – with respect to our own natural endowments, which might mean coal, and maximise on that, while ensuring that, in the rest of our political economy, we in fact hasten the transition rather than slow it down,” Patel said.

Trilemma Impact Investments MD Hulisani Neswiswi said the country's continued reliance on coal was not necessarily by choice. She said that while there was still significant coal available, the decreasing availability of funding for new coal projects was the main reason for the move away from coal.

“I think in South Africa, it’s not that we are necessarily in love but that we’re trapped in coal. If I were to be realistic, I’d say it’s going to take us about 10 to 15 years to ease up on coal. And that’s actually being driven by the reduction in funding support for new coal assets,” she said.

Neswiswi added that this external pressure, rather than a lack of coal resources, was causing the country to decline numerous potential projects. She noted, however, that this shift in funding would support the sustainability goals of the country’s energy sector.

She noted that, while energy demand in South Africa remained well established, the country was not necessarily managing to balance that demand in a sustainable way. She said the best option going forward would be to shift some of the burden away from large institutions and instead focus on enabling smaller users.

“I think the solution to that is to take the burden away from big stakeholders, being government and even large commercial entities. The best thing that government can do is to actually put the onus on micro users, which are households and micro enterprises,” Neswiswi said.

However, she expressed concern over recent government actions that she believed contradicted the broader goal of encouraging renewable-energy adoption.

She bemoaned that, while government supported the idea of decentralised renewable energy, it had recently introduced more complex requirements for households and businesses to register new systems.

“There have been numerous complaints from commercial as well as retail users, which includes your household users, around the new requirements for them to register new systems. So we were helping, and then we were kind of not helping,” Neswiswi said.

She said that, despite these challenges, there was still innovation occurring in the financing of sustainable energy projects, particularly in newer technologies such as hydrogen and waste-to-energy systems.

Neswiswi said that, although hydrogen could not yet replace any meaningful portion of South Africa’s energy base, it remained an important area for investment.

“These technologies do have real application in our world, even now, to varying degrees. But I don’t think we’re at the place where hydrogen can replace any meaningful contributor to our energy consumption base. But I do think that people and organisations who have the resources and the money should definitely invest in it, because it’s not going away anytime soon,” she said.

Neswiswi warned that organisations that failed to innovate and align their internal operations with future energy models could fall behind. She said the transition involved finding a balance between maintaining current financial performance and investing in new sustainable technologies.

“For any entity that has a stake in this, we really need to balance between current financial efficiencies and exploring sustainable ways to diversify and bring in sustainable baseload electricity technologies,” Neswiswi said.