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Renowned climate scientist Professor David King calls on SA to urgently prioritise renewable energy

Renowned climate scientist Professor David King calls on SA to urgently prioritise renewable energy
Professor Sir David King engages in a Q&A session alongside Professor Imraan Valodia, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate, Sustainability and Inequality at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 5 March 2025. (Photo: Wits University)
Julia Evans
By Julia Evans
7 Mar 2025
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Professor Sir David King, a leading voice on climate action, doubled down on his call for South Africa to urgently embrace renewable energy, drawing lessons from the United Kingdom’s policy-driven transition, and sharply criticising the apparent lack of a concrete plan from South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission.

“Please, South Africa, lead Africa and the Global South in this transition — don’t wait for the United States. Don’t wait for the North. Work with the North by all means. But don’t wait for us,” said renowned climate scientist Professor Sir David King during a public lecture at Wits University on Wednesday, 6 March 2025.

The South-African born British chemist and climate scientist has had years of experience in climate diplomacy, as the former UK Chief Scientific Adviser during Tony Blair’s time as prime minister, from 2000 to 2007, and now head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, an independent group of scientists that advises on climate change and biodiversity.

King stressed that South Africa must adopt consistent, long-term policies to drive its energy transition and urged South Africa to join a progressive global coalition, including nations like Brazil, China, and Kenya, in driving climate action. 

His call comes after the US’s announcement that it has withdrawn its $1.5-billion dollar funding for South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan.

Read more: Trump administration pulls more than $1bn of pledged funding for SA’s energy transition

What the UK did to move away from coal


When asked about what South Africa could learn from the UK’s experience — as the UK recently became 100% coal free when it closed its last coal-fired power plant in October 2024 — King emphasised that the UK government had a very clear idea of what it wanted to achieve in the future, and that it used policies to shift the energy market.

“I was working with Tony Blair in that transition, and what we did is going to sound simple — and it was,” said King, speaking to Daily Maverick after his lecture.

Professor Sir David King delivers his lecture at Wits. (Photo: Wits University)



Professor King engages in a Q&A session alongside Professor Imraan Valodia, the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate, Sustainability and Inequality at Wits. (Photo: Wits University)



“We told the five major private utilities producing electricity that they had to incorporate renewable energy into their mix,” said King. He explained that at first it was 2%, then 4% two years later, with the proportion increasing every two years.

“This was an obligation and they suffered financially if they didn’t deliver it,” he said.

King highlighted how the cost of renewables decreased dramatically as the market expanded.

“When we started this process, renewables were about 10 times more expensive than coal or gas. Now, they’re cheaper. 

“Why did it get cheaper? As the market expanded, the price kept falling. The price has come down 20-fold since the year 2000, when we began this,” said King. “It was a deliberate government action.”

King emphasised that this move was driven by Tony Blair committing to reducing emissions, which the UK delivered,  and now the UK generates 55% of its electricity from renewables.

King also discussed the creation of a trading system that incentivised companies to increase their renewable output. 

“The threat wasn’t a real threat,” he said. “We created a trading system, so if your company put more renewables on the grid, you could trade your excess with companies that had produced too little. 

“But if you produced too little, it cost you to trade with those companies that were producing more.”

King explained that it wasn’t more expensive for power utilities to do this because they were pushing the cost on to the consumer, and the consumer never detected the price increase. 

“If it’s 2% of your total electricity, it’s not going to be detectable. And of course, with the price coming down, we managed to win in the end. We could even totally remove the requirement (for renewables),” he said.

On carbon pricing, King was sceptical of its effectiveness alone, stating that Europe’s carbon market price of 50 euros per ton was not high enough to drive significant change. 

“What is required is government decisions and regulatory action,” he said.

Presidential Climate Commission lacks a clear plan


“I’m talking to the PCC (Presidential Climate Commission) on Friday and I’ve read all of the papers from recent meetings. I’ve put a lot of work into this,” King noted.

The commission is a multistakeholder body established by President Cyril Ramaphosa to “oversee and facilitate a just and equitable transition towards a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy”.

Read more: Presidential Climate Commission calls for plan that ‘maximises renewable energy’

“They don’t have a plan,” said King. “And if you ask me why they don’t have a plan… the reason is quite simple, it’s political, right? We don’t want to lose coal miners. And the coal miners are a big voting constituency.”

King proposed a different approach: “You build renewable capacity and then you can just let the coal go. The coal mines in this country are the most expensive way of making electricity in the world.”

He agreed that policies should be introduced to ensure alternative employment opportunities were available for coal miners.

Addressing the looming 2°C threat


During his lecture, King said that he considered the climate crisis “the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to face up to”, and noted the alarming reality of current global temperatures, stating that in January they reached 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels. 

He also pointed to record ocean temperature rises and rapid Arctic ice melt, describing these phenomena as “very, very worrying and very strange”. Notably, in 2023, the South Pole lost half of its sea ice in a single year.

“What we’re seeing is that damage we were thinking we would avoid in 2005,” King said, pointing to extreme weather events worldwide, including floods, heat stress, and forest fires that have caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

In the face of this, King outlined a comprehensive four-point strategy developed by the Climate Crisis Advisory Group: 

  • Reducing fossil fuel use.

  • Removing excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

  • Repairing damaged ecosystems.

  • Building resilience in vulnerable regions.


“We need to reduce emissions as deeply and rapidly as we can, every country,” said King. “But we also need to learn how to remove greenhouse gases at scale — tens of billions of tons need to be removed every year.”

King also highlighted innovative climate solutions, including ocean fertilisation — imitating whales defecating on the ocean surface — to remove billions of tons of greenhouse gases annually, and marine cloud brightening technology to protect polar ice.

“How do we buy time to give us that long time? We have to also repair those parts of the climate system that are already tipping.”

How South Africa should do it


“What if you left Eskom to deliver (current energy needs) and put an additional 20-30 gigawatts from renewables on to the grid, and then slowly shut down coal power stations?” King proposed. “Why not start that process right away?”

He argued that such a transition would not only end load shedding but also kickstart economic recovery.

Regarding concerns over the cost of the Just Energy Transition, particularly in light of the US pulling its funding, King emphasised that South Africa needed a set plan first, and the funding would come.

“Nevertheless, South Africa really needs to gear itself up to approach the funding that is going to be available,” he said.

Based on previous discussions in this country, King said he’s seen “nothing particularly coherent about moving away from fossil fuel dependence. If South Africa can put a good case forward, I do believe they will be a good contender (for financing the Just Energy Transition).” DM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

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