South Africa’s chief climate finance negotiator Zaheer Fakir has resigned from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) after accepting a position as senior adviser to the team preparing for the international climate talks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) later this year.
The twenty-eighth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP28) will be held in Dubai in early December.
Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy wished Fakir all the best for his future and thanked him for his commitment to the country’s climate change agenda. His resignation is effective February 28.
“He leaves behind a significant team of people that he has trained over many years. It can only benefit the cause of climate justice in Africa when persons of Mr Fakir’s caliber are appointed to assist the UNFCCC,” she said.
Fakir is the chairperson of the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance. He is also a member of the Presidential Climate Finance Task Team, and facilitated the development of the Climate Investment Fund Accelerated Coal Transition Investment Plan that was approved in 2022 and the Green Climate Fund.
Creecy thanked Fakir for his decades of service to the South African government and the department, saying it was a privilege to have worked with him in the climate finance space. She wished him all the best in his new role in the UAE, adding that he would continue to make the country proud.