EP 8: South Africa's Just Energy Transition: Rhetoric or Real Progress?

South Africa’s paradox is staggering: a country with world-class solar and wind resources still grappling with 12 hours of daily load shedding and a coal dependency that’s over 80%. The disconnect between enormous clean energy potential and the reliance on coal for jobs and livelihoods exemplifies the complex reality of just energy transition. Are promises of a greener future just rhetoric, or can real progress be made without leaving communities behind?

In this episode, Kabelo Rathobei dives into the heart of South Africa’s energy crisis, unpacking the struggles, successes, and tough decisions shaping its climate future. You’ll discover how initiatives like the Easigas clean cooking project are saving lives and reducing indoor pollution, why Sasol’s move towards green fuels marks a crucial but cautious shift for industry giants, and how private and community-led solar installations are igniting a bottom-up renewable revolutionall driven by load shedding the grid’s limits.

We break down the nuanced tensions of the just transition, how to balance urgent power needs with long-term climate goals, and why delaying coal plant retirements worsens climate impacts while risking economic and social stability. Kabelo explains the risks of new fossil fuel projects, like natural gas and offshore oil exploration, which threaten to lock South Africa—and Africa—into decades of stranded assets. The episode highlights how decisions made today will reverberate across the continent, influencing regional power pools and climate justice for marginalized communities who bear the brunt of environmental harms.

Most importantly, this isn’t just about South Africa—it's a blueprint for the whole continent. If the country’s transition falters, it could set back climate efforts across Africa; if it succeeds, it offers a model for equitable, sustainable growth. With a candid, African perspective, Kabelo emphasizes that progress and accountability must go hand in hand and that real community voices need seats at the table.

 Tune in for a powerful look at what it really takes to turn bold promises into tangible change and why South Africa’s story is pivotal to global climate justice.
Perfect for climate advocates, policymakers, students, and anyone interested in how Africa is shaping its climate future—these struggles, solutions, and stakes are vital for all of us. Don’t miss this eye-opening episode of Candid Sustainability, where hope meets hard truth.

Transcript

Kabelo (00:00)
A country with some of the best solar and wind resources on the planet, getting its lights cut for 12 hours a day. Yep, that is South Africa's load shedding. So let's see, that contradiction where we have extraordinary clean energy potential sitting right next to one of the most coal dependent grids on earth is exactly what we're unpacking today.

There are actually real wins that are happening, but there are also some real warning signs that we need to interrogate. And by the end of this episode, you'll understand why what happens in South Africa doesn't just stay in South Africa. It asserts the terms for the just transition across the entire African continent. So let's get into it.

Welcome to the Canada Sustainability Podcast, a podcast about real conversations at the intersection of people, planet and progress hosted by me, Kabelo Rathobei In each episode, I sit down with change makers, practitioners and everyday people doing extraordinary things in sustainability, from careers and climate finance to youth advocacy, renewable energy and beyond.

We keep it candid, we keep it honest, and we bring an African perspective to the global sustainability conversation. Because Africa's voice belongs at the center of this dialogue and not at the margins. But today I'm flying solo and I want us to talk a little bit about the just transition and what's really happening on the ground in South Africa.

Before we get into what's happening right now, I want to give you a little bit of a background because South Africa is not just any country in this story. South Africa burns more coal for electricity than almost any country it's size. According to the International Energy Agency, over 80 % of South Africa's electricity still comes from coal.

So think about it. If you're anywhere in South Africa and you're plugging in your phone charger at home, you're boiling the kettle, you're switching on your television,

the electricity powering that is most likely coming from burning coal. So here's what's so frustrating that I want us to look at. South Africa also has some of the best solar and wind conditions on the entire planet. So

Let's look at Northern Cape, for example. It's a province in the northwest of the country. It gets so much sunshine that energy experts and engineers traveling from Europe and Asia and, you know, different parts of the world literally just come to study it. The wind along Eastern Cape coast is also equally incredible that can be used for wind based energy. And the country has everything it needs to run a clean energy.

And yet we are still using coal. You might ask yourself, but why? You know, and the simple answer is that because coal isn't just an energy source in South Africa, it's also jobs. It's hundreds and thousands of people who've been working in the coal industry from

mining coal and transporting coal from running the different power stations. So most of the people, for example, in provinces like in Mpumalanga in the east of the country, these are communities that have been built around coal for generations. So when people just say shut down the coal plants, they are missing something that's very important.

You can't just switch off an entire way of life without a plan of, okay, what is going to happen next, right? Because these people need jobs. There's livelihoods at stake. So really, that's the tension. That's why South Africa is such a powerful example.

of what the just transition actually looks like in practice. It's really just not just the policy documents, you know. There's real communities that are going to be affected and there's real consequences that we need to take into account.

So now that we've looked at that, let's talk about what's actually going right, because some things are genuinely going right, we're moving in the right direction. And I want us to also put a little bit of a spotlight on that.

The first story is the Easi gas clean cooking initiative. think that's what they call it. And now when we're talking about clean cooking, I know that it might sound like it doesn't. It's not a big climate story per se, but I want you to stick with me because it really is. So here's the situation. Millions of people across South Africa, across Africa, really, they still

cook using wood, coal, paraffin. So they use open fires inside homes and side huts or in some small kitchen that is really not well ventilated. And the smoke that comes from these fires is actually incredibly harmful to keep breathing in.

so the World Health Organization says that indoor air pollution from cooking this way kills around 3.2 million people every year

Okay.

And let's also ask the question of who spends the most time cooking over these open fires. So it's women and girls, right, who then spend hours every day collecting firewood, cooking on these open fires. so it's really not just a climate issue. It's a health issue. It's a gender equality issue at the same time. So it's a huge issue that we need to look at.

So what Easigas is doing is actually helping to LPG, which is Liquified Petroleum Gas, which burns a little bit cleaner than the methods that are being used that I've cited. So yes, it's still a fossil fuel. It's definitely not the final answer, right? But it's a stepping stone. You you're getting people off

wood fires into something that's a little bit safer right now. And yeah, it's meaningful progress for rural families that are being affected out there. So that's a good initiative,

And then we also have a second piece of good news that involves a company called Sasol. So if you've grown up in South Africa, you would have heard of Sasol. They're one of the country's biggest industrial companies, and they've historically been one of the biggest polluters too, unfortunately. They make fuels and chemicals, which is largely by processing coal and gas.

so it was actually quite notable when Sasol the Natref refinery, so that's the National Petroleum Refiners of South Africa, the facility that's located in Sasolberg in the Free State of South Africa, they received what's called a product sustainability certificate for green fuels. So basically there's this independent body that has verified that the specific fuel that is being produced by Sasol at this refinery

meets international standards for being a lower carbon fuel. So yeah, think stuff like sustainable aviation fuel. So this is a kind of fuel that a lot of a lot more airlines are starting to use to reduce their carbon footprint and so so it is quite a step in the right direction. Now I want to be honest with you

This is not Sasol becoming a green company overnight. This is not what that means. Their main business is still fossil fuel based. yeah, the fact that one of South Africa's most powerful industries player is even just incrementally becoming certified in green products, it really matters. It shows that big companies are shifting their direction, even if it's slowly.

And I'm hoping that this is also going to create a ripple effect across the entire industry.

Okay, so now let's look at the third piece of good news. And this one is actually genuinely exciting because the people on the ground are also responsible for it. So South Africa has been expanding its renewable energy program through what's called the REIP, it's very long acronym. So don't worry about that. But what it really means is that the government runs this competitive auction.

where private companies come and bid to build wind or solar farms and then they sell the electricity to the national grid. So the program has been running since 2011 and has brought significant renewable energy capacity into the country. But what's even more striking lately is what's happening outside this formal system, right? So ordinary South Africans, AKA me and you, so...

and others of course. So homeowners, businesses, schools, a lot of these South Africans have been installing their own solar panels at a rapid pace. So according to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, private solar registrations have shot up dramatically between 2022 and 2024. Why? Honestly, it's not even like

people are trying to be climate friendly, it's really because of load shedding. So when the national grid can't keep the lights on, people find their own solutions and solar stops being a nice to have really, and it's becoming a necessity. But the irony is that South Africa's electricity crisis has accidentally accelerated its solar revolution from the bottom up. I love to see it.

Okay, so we've covered the good news. Now let's get into the part that I think is the most important. And these are the tensions that exist and that we need to interrogate. The stuff that doesn't make it onto the press release, right? So it's our responsibility to put it on the table and discuss it. So in 2021, South Africa made a big international agreement called the Just Transition Partnership or

JETP. A group of wealthy countries, so was like the US, the UK, there was France and Germany and the European Union itself, committed about 8.5 million US dollars to help South Africa move away from coal and build up its renewable energy instead. So this was a landmark deal, is what they called it, and it made headlines around the world, right? And this was in 2021. And part of the deal involved a clear plan.

So we're supposed to retire a significant number of South Africa's old polluting coal power stations by a specific date, right? And the goal was to stay on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, which is the target that scientists have put, that have put in, say that we need to hit this target in order to avoid the worst climate impacts.

But what's happened since is that those deadlines just keep shifting. They keep pushing them back. And for instance, ESKOM, which is the government owned company that runs South Africa's electricity grid, has said it needs just, it just needs more time. So there's some coal plants that are technically difficult to shut down quickly, as they say, and replacing them would then require a new power source to be ready first.

Otherwise, there's then going to be a lot more lights out and load shedding, you know, and we're already struggling with load shedding. they're like, we need to find we need to put a plan in place in order for us to move forward and retire these these coal plants. So we also have another problem of workers unions who have also pushed back because they say that members are going to lose jobs, their jobs at risk and

The local government have also asked for guarantees that these new industries will come to replace the coal before the plants close. And for me, that is a fair requirement because there's, as I've already mentioned, this is an industry that houses so many livelihoods, so many communities depend on it. And we need a plan before we just shut off everything.

All of these concerns are genuinely understandable from my point of view. And none of them are made up. But here's a hard truth is that every year we delay retiring coal is also another year of emissions pumping into the atmosphere, And the communities that continue to suffer from climate change who are affected by floods and droughts and food insecurity.

are very often the same communities we're trying to protect. So really it's a huge tension that exists and even for, I find it stressful. So I can already understand why the people in charge are, they're probably, you know, they have a lot of work cut out for them. But tell me what you think about this tension specifically.

So here's what gets even trickier. At the same time that South Africa is signing energy agreements, there's new fossil fuel projects that are still being approved and funded as we speak. The clearest example is...

for one for natural gas. So South Africa's official electricity plan called the integrated resource plan includes a large role for gas as what they call a transition fuel, right? So the idea of the transition fuel is that gas burns cleaner than coal, of course. And so we use gas as a stepping stone while we build up solar wind. So the logic sounds reasonable.

of course on the surface and it's also the same logic that you see in the Easi gas initiative that we've already spoken about. But here's the problem with this is that building gas infrastructure. So when we're talking infrastructure we're looking at things like pipelines, we're talking power stations, we're import terminals, all of these things cost billions of rand and locks the country into using that infrastructure for at least 30 to 50 years. So

researchers at CSIR, which is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, have raised concerns that this creates what they call stranded assets. So meaning you build something that's expensive and then the world moves on and leaves it behind. So we're essentially just wasting, no? There's also offshore oil and gas exploration that's currently happening in South African coastline.

which of course there's a lot of major international companies that are also involved in. These projects have been legally contested, but they keep moving forward, you know? And so the honest tension here is this. So we have South Africa. South Africa is dealing with a real electricity crisis right now. People need power. Businesses are closing down because of load shedding,

There's the pressure to say yes to these new energy sources, even if they're fossil fuels, So the pressure is definitely enormous. But the decision made today will shape the country's energy system for the next 50 years at least. And that's really the weight of the moment. And yeah, it's

It's a lot to think about, it's a lot to consider and yeah, we're in the thick of it.

Okay, and now for the tension that I find most important, And I think we tend to skip over it in big international conversations, or at least I haven't seen it being highlighted as much, this phrase of the just transition. It sounds simple, right? It means moving away from fossil fuels in a way that is fair, that leaves no one behind.

that workers who would lose their jobs, their jobs in the coal industry, for example, will then get new ones. That communities don't collapse, that the burden of change doesn't fall on the people who are already struggling the most, And in South Africa, there's a massive gap between this promise and the reality on the ground.

We have Mpumalanga as I've already mentioned, where most of the coal workers live. And already some of the highest unemployment rates are found in that province. know, we have schools, we have hospitals, there's local businesses. Many of them directly or indirectly depend on the coal industry. So if power stations close and the new green jobs don't arrive at the same place, for example,

They're not at the same pace. Maybe we don't get as many new jobs as we'd like to have. They isn't the same wages perhaps. And then, yeah, the just transition then becomes something else entirely and not just. It becomes a transition that is just for some people and it's just devastating other people. And people on the ground tend to be the ones that are affected the most.

And this is quite demonstrated by the research from the International Labour Organization as well as CSIR who have shown that the risk is actually quite real because solar and wind farms tend to be built in different areas from where coal mines are located. So just because you close the coal mines in Mpumalanga, you're not going to be building the wind farms in Mpumalanga.

You know what I mean? So the skills needed also to retain a solar panel are also different from the skills that are needed to work underground, for example, in a mine. so really retraining these people is going to take time and is going to take a lot of money. And right now.

There isn't that it doesn't seem like there's enough investment going into making sure that transition works for the people at the sharp end of the stick, And look, it doesn't mean that transition shouldn't happen. That is not what I'm saying. It absolutely should. It's it's it's imperative for climate action.

But it also has to happen with real resources, With real planning. And for me, what's quite important is that there should also be real communities in these rooms. People who are actually affected. People who are actually going to be faced with this reality more acutely The people, for instance, of the Mpumalanga province should be in these rooms.

planning and seeing what the right cause of action is. And it shouldn't just be a conversation between politicians and executives making decisions from somewhere in their offices without really understanding the impact on the ground.

Okay, so now I want to take a step back because everything we've just talked about doesn't only affect South Africa. South Africa is the largest economy on the African continent. And what it does and also what it doesn't do, also it really sets an example of, or it sets an example for other African countries and for the international community.

If South Africa's transition works, if the just transition works properly, if it shows that a coal-heavy economy can move to clean energy without destroying communities in the process, that becomes a little blueprint. It's a roadmap that the different countries can follow and would want to follow. But if it fails, if the timelines keep slipping,

If the communities of Mpumalanga, for example, are left behind, if the green promises don't translate to actual real change, then other governments are going to point to South Africa and say, see, that transition is hard, it's expensive, it's disruptive, you know, just, no, it's going to set the continent back. We don't want to be a part of it. That's also, you know, that's something to think about.

But there's also a practical connection. We have South Africa's electricity grid, which links to neighboring countries through something that they call the SAP, so the Southern African Power Pool. And this is, we have shared, and it's a shared electricity network that connects South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Bhutan, and the others. And so when...

South Africa's grid struggles, that instability also repels outwards. And when South Africa invests in new clean energy capacity, that can also then benefit the region. And then there's also the climate justice point. which, yeah, I think it is probably the most important one to sit with.

Africa as a whole is responsible for roughly 4 % of the world's total historic greenhouse gas emissions, just 4%. So yet African communities, we're talking farmers, fishers, communities, know, they are amongst the most exposed to the effects of climate change. We have longer droughts, there's more intense floods, you know, there's just unpredictable rainfall.

that destroys harvests, these are not future risks. These are things that are happening right now that are actually affecting communities on the ground. So when we talk about South Africa's energy transition, we're really asking a bigger question. Or we should be asking a bigger question, is that is the world's response to climate change going to be fair? Are the countries and communities

that did the least to cause the crisis, are they going to bear the most pain from fixing it? And it's not a rhetorical question. It's really a question that should be at the center for me of every climate negotiation and every just transition plan.

so you're probably thinking, okay, what should we take from all of this? So South Africa in 2026 is a country trying to do something that is genuinely difficult, I believe. Yeah, they're trying to keep the lights on. They're trying to grow the economy. They're trying to protect jobs here. They want to be part of cutting the global emissions, the greenhouse gas emissions. They are...

trying to build a fair society all at the same time. It's a lot, you know, and these goals, they don't always point in the same direction. And sometimes the gap between what's promised and what's delivered is, it's very wide, and people can see it and it affects people. yeah, it's, yeah, the gap is wide and we need to find a way to bridge that gap.

But I don't want you to leave this episode feeling hopeless. Please don't feel hopeless. That was not the point of this episode. Because as we started, as I started to mention earlier in the episode, there's actually a lot of work that is being done that we can point to. see the solar expansion that is real in the country. We see clean cooking reaching households across the country. That's real impact. We also have Sasol.

which is beginning to move even if it's slowly, you know, that's starting to join the sustainability conversation. What I want you to hold on to is that progress and accountability have to go together. So we can definitely celebrate the wins and we should also not cease to ask the hard questions. We need to ask when...

Are we reaching the coal deadlines? How and when are we going to make sure that we reach these deadlines? How are the workers in Mpumalanga part of the planning so that they're not affected? What provisions are being made and safeguards to ensure that they're not being disadvantaged in this transition? Is the money reaching the communities that it needs to reach the most? Because

Yeah, it's a just transition. It has to be that otherwise it's not worth having. But in the next episode, I'm going to bring in an economist who has done serious research on South African trade and what it means for the country's energy choices. So we're going to look a bit,

why fossil fuel dependency is so hard to shake economically and what could actually change that. And then we're also going to have a little bit of a conversation about trade also reinforces this dependency on fossil fuels. So it's a conversation that I've...

I've been genuinely looking forward to you and I hope that you're going to enjoy it. So do not miss it. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen, share this with somebody who needs to hear it and I'll see you on the next one. This has been Candid Sustainability. I am Kabelo Rathobei Have a good one.