Brent Cloete is an economist with 19 years of experience advising public, private, civil society, donor and multilateral clients on economic development, industrial policy, climate change, and energy issues across Africa. This includes considering the systemic impacts of climate change on economies, and identifying, understanding, managing and disclosing climate-related risks and opportunities at an institutional level. He supported the conceptualisation of the South African climate change mitigation system, including the carbon tax, and assisted with the development of sector and development strategies at the national, provincial and municipal levels. He supported the development of the Southern African Coal Roadmap, National Climate Change Response Policy, the National Development Plan, South Africa’s Low Emissions Development Strategy submitted to the UNFCCC.

He holds a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Stellenbosch, and after spending more than 15 years at the two premier South African specialist economic consulting companies, co-created Enuity in 2022 to focus on unlocking climate-positive sustainable development.

His expertise includes identifying, understanding, managing and disclosing climate-related risks and opportunities, as well as assessing the attractiveness of mitigation and energy supply options, and low-carbon investment enablers and barriers. The has considered the physical impacts of climate change on South and Southern Africa. He led several regulatory, technology, socioeconomic and climate impact monitoring, assessment and evaluation endeavours. He has also undertaken several value chain analyses, cost-benefit assessments, and other wide-ranging sector studies in a variety of sectors. These include: agriculture, water management, mining and minerals, liquid fuels, financial services, manufacturing, smelting and minerals processing, retail, power generation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, forestry, sawmilling, printing and publishing, textile and clothing, chemicals, telecommunications, and green hydrogen.

Brent was closely involved in the design of the South African mitigation system, advising the World Bank, bilateral donors, the South African government, state-owned enterprises, civil society, business associations and private companies. This included developing energy and mitigation strategies for public and private sector clients, and analysing how these interact with policy instruments (like carbon taxes, budgets, and trading schemes, and trade measures like carbon border adjustment mechanisms) and broader economic, industry and socioeconomic trends. In Brent has assisted with the development of sector and development strategies at the national, provincial and municipal level, and supported the development of the Southern African Coal Roadmap, National Climate Change Response Policy, the National Development Plan, South Africa’s Low Emissions Development Strategy submitted to the UNFCCC and the South African carbon tax.

Brent is an experienced consultant and project manager that is accustomed to running large interdisciplinary projects for public and private sector clients. The has provided training and capacity building to audiences with varying degrees of climate change knowledge, and has used scenario analysis to help clients understanding climate-related risks and opportunities. This included considering likely South African carbon tax rate trajectories under different NGFS scenarios, and how different levels of climate ambition in South African and the rest of the world could shape South African socioeconomic and sustainable development outcomes.