Just energy transition – just who gets left behind?

Dr Martin Kaggwa | Executive Research Director | Sam Tambani Research Institute (SATRI) | mail me |

As South Africa plans to host the G20, there is revived interest and a hive of side events taking place looking at how to make the energy transition to cleaner energy use just for all. With an official unemployment rate of 32.9%, the justness of South Africa’s energy transition must consider potential job losses in the country’s high emission coal energy sector that still employs roughly 92,000 people. 

Acknowledging that many will be left behind is an honest starting point for deliberating how to make the energy transition in a fossil energy dependent country like South Africa just. Honesty may sound somewhat emotive but given that everyone, especially workers in the high emission energy sector must buy-in into this transition, any feeling of dishonesty will alienate them from the process. Moreover, it also has potential to weaken the resolve of those who are genuinely searching for interventions that provide alternative livelihood for those to be left behind.

A central narrative and selling point of Just Energy Transition is the promise that no one will be left behind. This is largely not true. Organised labour has long recognised that, such an energy transition will have an unavoidable negative effect on those who draw their livelihoods from the fossil energy sector. Hence, it was the first party to the concept of the just energy transition. To organised labour, the gist of the just energy transition was that nobody, including workers and communities, should be left worse off as the country transitions.

When words lose their weight

Over time, the term Just Energy Transition has been appropriated and, in some cases, diluted from its initial intentions by many parties’ including government, interest groups and business. It remains the buzzword when it comes to debates and strategies for mitigating adverse climate conditions but used in very loose terms, lacking a central element of social justice.

Countries that are preparing themselves for or have already embarked on a transition to cleaner and renewable energies need to come to terms that the transition will leave many behind unless specific livelihood safeguards are successfully put in place. The safeguards should be specific, follow a particular order and be aligned to the pace of the energy transition.

The illusion of “just”

It is useful to also recognise that the use of the term Just Energy Transition comes with two implicit controversies…

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