- South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) has been riddled with top-down decision making while grassroots communities suffer from weak energy infrastructure and are in dire need of a stable energy supply and yet have no meaningful voice.
- Led by the government and international partnerships, the JET has – up to now – failed to consult grassroot communities to establish their needs and include them in effective decision-making on energy projects.
The Green Connection’s Advocacy Programme Head, Lisa Makaula says, “South Africa’s coal dependent and carbon-intense economy has proven to be unreliable and unsustainable. Part of addressing sustainability is ensuring that the just transition to renewable energy is driven from the bottom up, and not top-to-bottom, so that it does not leave marginalised communities behind”.
Past coal, oil and gas extractive initiatives have – instead of uplifting the communities in which they operate – compromised the health of the people living in those communities by exposing them to air pollution from carbon and methane emissions, water contamination and occupational hazards; leaving them worse off than before. Carbon dioxide from burning coal and gas causes climate change, but when you add the impact of methane leakage, then methane (from LNG) is 80 times more harmful on the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the next 20 years.
Commenting in a Just Energy Transition Webinar – hosted by The Green Connection earlier this month – Nonhle Mbuthuma of the Amadiba Crisis Committee in the Wild Coast said, “among the many challenges that the Wild Coast community is faced with is unstable electricity infrastructure. We are supported by a very weak grid, when it is windy the electricity goes, when it is raining the electricity goes. We also have the issue of extractivism of fossil fuels. It is as though fossil fuels are the only energy solution in our country when there are more reliable renewable energy alternatives. We have people dying on the ground because of fossil fuel extraction, but nobody cares.”
Renewable energy generation – which is a safer and cheaper alternative to fossil fuel energy generation – has enormous potential to make an economic impact on job creation and local entrepreneur participation. However, the JET Funding Platform which was initiated by the International Partners Group (IPG) in 2021, now led by the Presidential Climate Commission, is yet to address the needs of young people and their economic inclusion and participation in the energy transition. The government has an opportunity to use the 4.7billion euro donation from the European Union to advance the JET and include the youth, local and community entrepreneurs in the green energy sector.
Government’s stride towards an inclusive just energy transition is moving at a snail’s pace while continued infrastructure capacitation for fossil fuel generation is moving at rapid speed. The first draft of the IEP is only due on 31 March 2025, after a year-long drafting process, before it can be reviewed for public participation. Ninety percent of South African oceans are under lease, by multinationals, for oil and gas exploration and extraction – at any given moment – leaving
marginalised communities to bear the brunt of environmental damage. Eskom has just expanded coal-fired energy generation at Kusile Power Station by 800MW.
African Climate Alliance Advocacy Coordinator, Sibusiso Mazomba says, “If we treat the just energy transition as just another way to switch the sources of energy that we use as opposed to seeing it as an opportunity to undo the systemic inequalities that exist in South Africa that would be extremely concerning. It is important to ensure that the transition does not lose touch with the grassroots.”
An inclusive and community-focused IEP is one that addresses energy poverty, energy access and the urgent need to tackle climate change with the bottom-up approach being a central principle. With multinational corporations developing interest in oil and gas exploitation along the coast of South Africa, coastal communities have been struggling to advocate for sustainable ocean governance as means to protect and preserve their livelihood. The energy plan comes at a time when vulnerable communities suffer from limited energy access in South Africa.
Source: Green Connection
