Leonie Joubert – Energy Transition https://energytransition.org The Global Energiewende Thu, 09 Dec 2021 13:07:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 Black gold: South Africa’s mixed coal messages https://energytransition.org/2021/12/black-gold-south-africas-mixed-coal-messages/ https://energytransition.org/2021/12/black-gold-south-africas-mixed-coal-messages/#respond Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:00:43 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=25547 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. South Africa’ s coal dependent electricity utility, Eskom...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/12/black-gold-south-africas-mixed-coal-messages/feed/ 0 Universal basic income: the answer to a post-carbon South Africa https://energytransition.org/2021/12/universal-basic-income-the-answer-to-a-post-carbon-south-africa/ https://energytransition.org/2021/12/universal-basic-income-the-answer-to-a-post-carbon-south-africa/#respond Tue, 07 Dec 2021 10:00:46 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=25461 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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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/12/universal-basic-income-the-answer-to-a-post-carbon-south-africa/feed/ 0 Livestock and maize at sharp edge of climate emergency in southern Africa https://energytransition.org/2021/11/livestock-and-maize-at-sharp-edge-of-climate-emergency-in-southern-africa/ https://energytransition.org/2021/11/livestock-and-maize-at-sharp-edge-of-climate-emergency-in-southern-africa/#respond Tue, 09 Nov 2021 10:00:06 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=25137 Southern Africa is warming at twice the rate of the global average. Worsening drought and rising temperatures are likely to bring about a collapse of two keystone agricultural activities — livestock and maize farming — warns the latest climate science, presented in the long-awaited United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) new report. Drastic warming and increased droughts...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/11/livestock-and-maize-at-sharp-edge-of-climate-emergency-in-southern-africa/feed/ 0 Could a Green New Deal clean up Africa’s dirtiest electricity grid? https://energytransition.org/2021/11/could-a-green-new-deal-clean-up-africas-dirtiest-electricity-grid/ https://energytransition.org/2021/11/could-a-green-new-deal-clean-up-africas-dirtiest-electricity-grid/#respond Thu, 04 Nov 2021 10:00:35 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=25125 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/11/could-a-green-new-deal-clean-up-africas-dirtiest-electricity-grid/feed/ 0 South Africa’s new energy policy is a game-changer for Africa’s biggest carbon polluter https://energytransition.org/2021/09/south-africas-new-energy-policy-is-a-game-changer-for-africas-biggest-carbon-polluter/ https://energytransition.org/2021/09/south-africas-new-energy-policy-is-a-game-changer-for-africas-biggest-carbon-polluter/#respond Thu, 02 Sep 2021 10:00:14 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=24673 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/09/south-africas-new-energy-policy-is-a-game-changer-for-africas-biggest-carbon-polluter/feed/ 0 Plug-and-play power stations may be ‘steaming’ towards SA waters https://energytransition.org/2021/04/plug-and-play-power-stations-may-be-steaming-towards-sa-waters/ https://energytransition.org/2021/04/plug-and-play-power-stations-may-be-steaming-towards-sa-waters/#respond Thu, 08 Apr 2021 10:00:19 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=24137 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/04/plug-and-play-power-stations-may-be-steaming-towards-sa-waters/feed/ 0 Fossil fuel’s killer air pollution: South Africa’s death toll https://energytransition.org/2021/03/fossil-fuels-killer-air-pollution-south-africas-death-toll/ https://energytransition.org/2021/03/fossil-fuels-killer-air-pollution-south-africas-death-toll/#respond Tue, 30 Mar 2021 10:00:42 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=24087 A year since the first COVID-19 cases appeared in South Africa, the disease has killed more than 50,000 people. A new study now shows that a similar number of South Africans die each year due to diseases caused by air pollution linked with the burning of fossil fuels. Air pollution linked to burning of fossil fuels in South Africa – License: Public Domain Credit: © Wim van’t Einde There are days...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/03/fossil-fuels-killer-air-pollution-south-africas-death-toll/feed/ 0 Shock at oil-gas prospecting plans for Okavango Delta and Kgalagadi https://energytransition.org/2021/01/shock-at-oil-gas-prospecting-plans-for-okavango-delta-and-kgalagadi/ https://energytransition.org/2021/01/shock-at-oil-gas-prospecting-plans-for-okavango-delta-and-kgalagadi/#respond Mon, 25 Jan 2021 14:00:27 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=23783 The window of opportunity to keep the average global temperature from breaking through the ceiling of 2°C — or preferably 1.5°C — as set out in the UN’s Paris Agreement is closing fast. But for parts of the Kalahari, a vast semi-desert in southern Africa, the battle to stabilise the regional temperature is already lost. Botswana is expected to reach an average warming of 2°C in less than five...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/01/shock-at-oil-gas-prospecting-plans-for-okavango-delta-and-kgalagadi/feed/ 0 Social media: an existential threat to Africa in a climate-altered future? https://energytransition.org/2020/11/social-media-an-existential-threat-to-africa-in-a-climate-altered-future/ https://energytransition.org/2020/11/social-media-an-existential-threat-to-africa-in-a-climate-altered-future/#respond Thu, 26 Nov 2020 14:00:17 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=23491 News media is a load-bearing wall in a healthy democracy. It informs the public discourse, shapes citizens’ active participation in day-to-day governance, and holds elected officials to account. The rise of social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in the past decade shows what happens when this new media ecosystem replaces traditional news as a primary source of information — and...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2020/11/social-media-an-existential-threat-to-africa-in-a-climate-altered-future/feed/ 0 Restoring Africa’s damaged ecosystems is central to a just transition https://energytransition.org/2020/11/restoring-africas-damaged-ecosystems-is-central-to-a-just-transition/ https://energytransition.org/2020/11/restoring-africas-damaged-ecosystems-is-central-to-a-just-transition/#respond Tue, 03 Nov 2020 10:50:42 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=23389 Africa’s contribution to the global share of the carbon pollution that is destabilising Earth’s climate is relatively small. A just transition for the continent needs, therefore, to lean towards adapting to an unstable climate, ahead of aggressive mitigation efforts. A case study from South Africa shows how a Green New Deal-approach could help restore damaged ecosystems...

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