British High Commission in Pretoria Jobs - Energy Planner and Climate Change Specialist Vacancies

British High Commission in Pretoria Jobs - Energy Planner and Climate Change Specialist Vacancies


Background:

This position will serve as a secondment into the Secretariat of the constituted Presidential Climate Commission (PCC). The PCC is an independent, multistakeholder body established by and led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Chairperson. The PCC is a key stakeholder for the British High Commission and wider stakeholders such as the International Partners Group on issues such as the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) between the SA and the UK, US, Germany, France and the EU.

It oversees and drives South Africa’s transition, answering directly to the President – it has the potential to accelerate or slow progress, with its focus on the social impacts. UK’s priority is to support the former (acceleration) while ensuring it is just and leaves no one behind (CPD COP26 priority).

Programmatically, the PCC has been supported by South Africa-UK PACT with a technical assistance study. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are undertaking a project focussed on “Energy Sector Decarbonisation Pathways for net-zero carbon by 2050’’ on the PCC’s behalf. South Africa-UK PACT supports the PCC on climate policy implementation and operationalisation.

As a partner, South Africa-UK PACT supports the PCC with securing the technical inputs that will be so influential in terms of it making headway across its mitigation portfolio.

The constituency make-up of the PCC (from business, labour, civil society, parliament and academia) brings together divergent views on priority around the just transition, and the technical input from the Secretariat (and specifically from its mitigation-focussed work) are pivotal for using empirical, evidence-based rationale to draw consensus across its commissioners

Role Description:

The purpose of the secondment and the main function of the post holder will be to manage, plan and coordinate research towards the implementation of a just transition in South Africa and to support the PCC Secretariat functions. This role will specifically support energy planning but will be engaged in the PCC’s mitigation portfolio as a whole and operate on a senior technical and strategic level within the PCC Secretariat.

The post holder will be employed by the British High Commission in Pretoria and work from the PCC Secretariat which is located at the offices of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), in Rosebank, Johannesburg.

The post holder will have a line manager within the PCC who will allocate and supervise the secondee’s duties and will also manage the secondee’s performance accordingly. Within the British High Commission, the secondee will be line managed by the South Africa-UK PACT Secondment Lead.

The post holder will be locally recruited and must have the authorisation to reside and work in South Africa.

Roles and responsibilities:

Support & oversee the PCC’s Energy Planning Programme