‘SA can’t leave its shift to a low-carbon future to chance’ 25 Jan 2021 Building resilience: South Africa is dependent on fossil fuels, but the switch to a more sustainable economy requires protecting people’s livelihoods. (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg/Getty Images) Without international and private finance, South Africa’s path towards building a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy will be “very limited”, according to the chief executive of the National Business Initiative (NBI), Joanne Yawitch. This is a result of the poor state of the economy, worsened by the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, Yawitch said at the launch of the Just Transition Finance Roadmaps in South Africa and India project. Both are coal-dependent countries.