South Africa – Energy Transition https://energytransition.org The Global Energiewende Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:08:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 Can South Africa’s Just Transition close the Energy Sectors Gender Gap? https://energytransition.org/2023/04/can-south-africas-just-transition-close-the-energy-sectors-gender-gap/ https://energytransition.org/2023/04/can-south-africas-just-transition-close-the-energy-sectors-gender-gap/#respond Thu, 20 Apr 2023 08:00:51 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=28121 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2023/04/can-south-africas-just-transition-close-the-energy-sectors-gender-gap/feed/ 0 South Africa secures international aid at COP27 to champion the coal to renewables shift https://energytransition.org/2023/02/south-africa-secures-international-aid-at-cop27-to-champion-the-coal-to-renewables-shift/ https://energytransition.org/2023/02/south-africa-secures-international-aid-at-cop27-to-champion-the-coal-to-renewables-shift/#respond Tue, 28 Feb 2023 08:00:54 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=27889 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2023/02/south-africa-secures-international-aid-at-cop27-to-champion-the-coal-to-renewables-shift/feed/ 0 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 Threatening Africa’s Eden – Oil and gas plans loom over the world’s largest nature conservation area https://energytransition.org/2021/10/threatening-africas-eden-oil-and-gas-plans-loom-over-the-worlds-largest-nature-conservation-area/ https://energytransition.org/2021/10/threatening-africas-eden-oil-and-gas-plans-loom-over-the-worlds-largest-nature-conservation-area/#respond Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:00:20 +0000 https://energytransition.org/?p=24919 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...

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]]> https://energytransition.org/2021/10/threatening-africas-eden-oil-and-gas-plans-loom-over-the-worlds-largest-nature-conservation-area/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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