S1E27 Dr Chantal Naidoo | The Nexus of Finance and Sustainability Transitions

Earth Cast

🎙In S1E27, Olivia Taylor speaks to Dr Chantal Naidoo about climate finance and the unique funding needs for financing just energy transition investment portfolios in South Africa. Chantal unpacks options and concerns regarding how to accelerate the JET, and about how her company, Rabia Transitions Initiative, is enabling financial actors to finance and contribute to a just and inclusive transition. She also gives her view on whether international and national finance architecture are suited to support a just energy transition, and so much more! Chantal is the founder of Rabia Transitions, a nonprofit research initiative working at the nexus of finance and sustainability transitions. She has worked in the public and private finance sectors for nearly 30 years. Her climate finance work notably includes serving as a regional advisor to the Green Climate Fund supporting African governments to access climate finance, and with the Development Bank of Southern Africa focused on designing green funds, climate finance policies, and designing bespoke renewable energy investment programs. During 2022, Chantal was also seconded to the South African Presidency, where she served as Lead Researcher to the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team supporting their mandate to consider the Just Energy Transition (JET) Partnership forged at COP26 and develop a JET Investment Plan. Chantal has several policy and academic published works and has a doctorate from the University of Sussex looking at the role of financial systems in sustainability transition processes, with masters and undergraduate degrees in accounting, development finance and tax law. She is a also research fellow at Sussex University, Stellenbosch University and a Visiting Researcher at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and Environment. 🎙To follow more of Chantal’s work, you can find her on LinkedIn and Rabia’s website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantalnaidoo/ | https://www.rabiatransitions.org