Implementing just transitions

This policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines the challenges South Africa faces as it moves from the planning phase to the implementation of its just transition away from coal. It identifies critical misalignments between national and subnational priorities, institutional capacity gaps in coal-dependent regions, and the inadequacy of current financial mechanisms to support transformative, high-risk projects.

• There is a significant discrepancy between the just transition ambitions of national-level actors and those at the subnational level. National governmental entities, the state-owned energy company Eskom, and foreign funders tend to favor lower ambition, focusing on emissions reductions and energy security. In contrast, local union members, communities, and subnational authorities seek more ambitious transformative change, prioritizing issues such as employment security, poverty, food security, and public health.
• Subnational institutional capacity is a major barrier to implementing the just transition, particularly in the Mpumalanga Province, which is the most coal-dependent region in South Africa. These capacity gaps include restricted finances, dependence on coal revenues, limited access to data, and challenges in infrastructure and service delivery, all of which are exacerbated by a history of centralized energy and mining policymaking.
• Existing financing rules and practices are unsuitable for transformative just transition projects, which are typically small, high-risk, and based on novel technologies. To enable systemic change, the document suggests the need for blended finance, de-risking activities, and decision-making processes that prioritize social and environmental impacts over conventional financial metrics.
• The selection of beneficiaries and the allocation of resources for just transition projects require transparent decision-making to ensure public legitimacy and prevent corruption. This is especially critical in South Africa, where there is a history of regulatory agencies being corrupted by the industries they are meant to regulate.
• In the development of green hydrogen projects, just transition objectives are often treated as a 'bolt-on' rather than a core component. Project developers frequently defer social objectives until after technical feasibility is established, and the added costs of just transition measures—such as community retraining—are seen as detrimental to the project's financial viability.
• South Africa has established several key policy instruments to guide its transition, including a Just Transition Framework in 2022, a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) initiated in 2021 with the EU, US, UK, France, and Germany, a Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) for 2023-2027, and a JET Implementation Plan published in December 2023.

APA

Strambo, C., Patel, M., & Maimele, S. (2024). Implementing just transitions. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/just-transitions-south-africa-sei2024-047-1.pdf

Chicago

Strambo, Claudia, Muhammed Patel, and Seutame Maimele. Implementing just transitions. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2024. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/just-transitions-south-africa-sei2024-047-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Strambo |first1=Claudia |last2=Patel |first2=Muhammed |last3=Maimele |first3=Seutame |title=Implementing just transitions |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=November 2024 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/just-transitions-south-africa-sei2024-047-1.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{strambo2024implementing, author = {Strambo, Claudia and Patel, Muhammed and Maimele, Seutame}, title = {{Implementing just transitions}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2024}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/just-transitions-south-africa-sei2024-047-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }