South Africa must lead at COP27, and accelerate the Just Transition at home

A statement by the Life After Coal (LAC) campaign—comprising the Centre for Environmental Rights, Earthlife Africa, and groundWork—urging the South African government to lead at COP27 by supporting climate-vulnerable nations and accelerating a domestic Just Transition away from fossil fuels.

• The LAC campaign urges the South African government to adopt several specific global policy positions at COP27, including supporting a non-fossil fuel development vision for Africa, rejecting carbon trading under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, and opposing the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and geo-engineering.
• The campaign calls for developed nations to provide reparations for climate impacts in the global South, specifically through increased climate finance, the operationalization of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, and the establishment of a loss and damage funding facility.
• Domestically, the LAC campaign advocates for South Africa to meet the lower bound of its 2021 Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target range to align with a 1.5°C pathway. This requires cancelling new coal and gas projects and accelerating renewable energy deployment.
• The campaign proposes a timeline for total decarbonization, calling for zero fossil fuels in electricity generation by 2040 and a completely zero fossil fuel economy by 2050, which would require retiring the coal fleet faster than the IRP 2019 timetable.
• Any climate finance, including the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), must be transparent and prioritize coal workers and communities to address poverty and unemployment, while strictly excluding funding for new fossil fuels.

APA

Lerato (2022). South Africa must lead at COP27, and accelerate the Just Transition at home. Centre for Environmental Rights. https://cer.org.za/news/cop-statement

Chicago

Lerato. South Africa must lead at COP27, and accelerate the Just Transition at home. Centre for Environmental Rights, 2022. https://cer.org.za/news/cop-statement.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Lerato |title=South Africa must lead at COP27, and accelerate the Just Transition at home |publisher=Centre for Environmental Rights |date=5 November 2022 |url=https://cer.org.za/news/cop-statement |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{lerato2022south, author = {Lerato}, title = {{South Africa must lead at COP27, and accelerate the Just Transition at home}}, publisher = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, year = {2022}, month = nov, url = {https://cer.org.za/news/cop-statement}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }