All posts tagged: South Africa


The complexities of the clean energy divide

At the height of power blackouts in South Africa earlier this year households went without electricity for 10 hours a days. The unprecedented spike in outage hours saw the middle class scramble for alternative energy sources to buffer against the failing electricity grid. However, the poorest and the most vulnerable were being left in the dark, writes Ufrieda Ho. Read More

Can South Africa’s just transition close the energy sectors gender gap?

South Africa’s energy transition passed significant milestones at the last two COPs (Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC). Over the last two years, a framework for a just transition was developed and adopted by government, considering the inclusion of groups left behind by the energy industry. Women in particular face numerous challenges in the energy sector: while they fail to profit from energy production, they are also deeply afflicted by the existential issues linked to coal-based energy production. Tunicia Phillips and Leona Schmitt take a closer look at South Africa’s just transition plans and how they seek to include women in the process. Read More

South Africa secures international aid at COP27 to champion the coal to renewables shift

South Africa’s ambitious plan to transition away from coal was endorsed at the recent COP27 climate conference in Egypt where officials from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and the European Union signed pledges of $8.5 billion to help fund its initial steps. Currently South Africa relies upon coal to generate up to 87% of its electricity, but by the end of the decade the nation wants to close more than half its aging, unreliable coal-fired power stations and replace them with new solar and renewables. Yet today state-owned energy provider Eskom is struggling to provide consistent electricity. But despite the climate benefits, citizens and miners fear the plan may end up costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, lead to the privatization of Eskom and rapid market liberalization as operators race to construct solar farms near existing coal facilities. Lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum reviews the situation. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series.

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Black gold: South Africa’s mixed coal messages

South Africa has just been given a purse of $8.5 billion to help accelerated its move away from coal. But as the international climate negotiations wrapped up in Glasgow, a few key developments at home suggest that the continent’s biggest polluter is not in a hurry to end its relationship with coal. Leonie Joubert takes a closer look.

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Universal basic income: the answer to a post-carbon South Africa

When South Africa emerged from the most severe of the COVID lockdowns in 2020, nearly one in three employable adults was jobless. The country’s escalating unemployment is a symptom of an unequal economy inherited from generations of colonial- and apartheid-era exploitation. Could a universal basic income be the answer to a more equitable post-carbon world? Leonie Joubert investigates.

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Could a Green New Deal clean up Africa’s dirtiest electricity grid?

Civil society organisations in South Africa are proposing a post-WW2-style economic recovery programme to steer energy transformation for the state utility that echoes Roosevelt’s New Deal in the USA. But the country has been thrown into an even deeper energy crisis, following an explosion at one of the country’s newly-minted power stations. Could this make the ‘Green New Eskom’ idea even more relevant? Leonie Joubert investigates.

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Threatening Africa’s Eden – Oil and gas plans loom over the world’s largest nature conservation area

Environmental disasters and global warming severely threaten global biodiversity. Few wild places can boast diverse ecosystems that are largely intact. One such area – Kavango Zambezi Transfontier Conservation Area (KAZA) – is being threatened by plans by the oil and gas industry. Andy Gheorghiu reports on the fight to prevent oil and gas extraction in Southern Africa that is threatening our planet’s largest nature protection zone.

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South Africa’s new energy policy is a game-changer for Africa’s biggest carbon polluter

What better way to set a country on a path to a just transition than to allow lower-income families to harvest the free solar energy falling on or around their homes, and sell it to the national grid? After years of regulatory deadlock on the private sale of electricity in South Africa, sudden tectonic policy changes mean community energy co-operatives might be able to join the energy supply sector.

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Plug-and-play power stations may be ‘steaming’ towards SA waters

South Africa is taking emergency steps to plug the holes in a leaky electricity grid that are causing another season of scheduled power outages. One of these involves hiring three plug-and-play ocean-based mobile power stations – so-called ‘powerships’. But local energy experts warn that these are risky, expensive, and that the money would be far better spent building utility scale solar and wind plants. 

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