The point is often made that the cost of the climate transition is only expensive when compared to business as usual. It is nothing compared to the cost of inaction. The same can almost certainly be said about the impacts that failing to transition will have on the most vulnerable in our country.
Earlier this month SouthSouthNorth and Net Zero Tracker published a report entitled “Equity & Just Transition Commitments in South Africa”, assessing the just transition strategies (which it refers to as “equity indicators”) of both public and private entities, as well as their emission reduction commitments.
Entities across society are producing transition plans: from fossil fuel companies and financial institutions to municipalities and state-owned companies. These plans, in theory, set out commitments to climate action, targets and strategies to achieve these commitments, and how the impacts of the plans on affected stakeholders will be managed.
According to the CDP, a climate transition plan refers to taking actions that (1) align a business model with a world that limits global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and where natural ecosystem health is restored; and (2) enable a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term. A credible transition plan, it says, “sets out how an organisation will achieve the above.”
The role of assessments such as that of Net Zero Tracker is to evaluate the credibility and viability of these plans, to distinguish real commitment and action from greenwashing, and to determine areas for further work.
We are into the middle of the decade in which, to increase the prospects of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, global emissions must almost halve. Yet emissions continue to rise every single year. This is the reality, and the context in which any transition plan, whether public or private, must be assessed in terms of its equity.
Equity indicators in transition plans
Establishing equity indicators to assess the integration of social justice elements into transition plans, alongside climate commitments, is crucial. However, contrary to what is frequently argued, transition plans do not entail a “balancing act” which weighs social justice against climate commitments. Instead, these two essential aspects of a transition plan – equity and decarbonisation – must work alongside and reinforce each other. In a climate crisis that threatens human and natural systems as we know them, one cannot succeed without the other.
Standard equity metrics often included in transition plans so far tend to be limited to quite basic activities such as “skills training” and “community investment”. These are important. However, any notion of justice, fairness, and leaving no one behind has to be considered in the context of the extremely serious implications of failing to meet climate goals, including increasingly extreme weather events and their severe economic implications, food insecurity and climate migration. This is why equity indicators cannot be seen as a trade-off against other climate objectives and certainly not used as a reason to delay these. They are, in fact, the raison d’être for the transition.
How is SA’s private sector doing?
While there are differences in their maturity of approach, no entity is yet doing enough to set and implement genuine, credible transition plans that will ensure SA meets its decarbonisation commitment. This is before we even start talking about equity or just transition plans.
There are various reasons for the private sector’s reluctance to meet the transition head on. For some of SA’s biggest entities, a credible transition means a fundamental shift in business models, which is difficult and expensive, and in some cases poses an existential crisis for companies which have long defined themselves in ways which are impossible to reconcile with the transition.
Sasol, for example, has started to indicate that it may be preparing to pull back from its 2030 emission reduction targets. A company that proclaims itself indispensable to the South African economy has little to no plan for surviving the inevitable global transition away from fossil fuels.
The banking sector is not very different. None of the country’s five largest banks has a credible plan to meet the Paris-aligned climate goals.
At the same time, government has failed to establish a cohesive, consistent approach to climate policy. The Climate Change Act was finally promulgated in July 2024 but is yet to come into force. The Carbon Tax Act, meant to incentive the transition away from high carbon activities by shifting the responsibility for the cost of carbon onto polluters, is still largely ineffective due to a low carbon price and extensive allowances. Both Acts are the subject of ongoing concerted lobbying by vested interests to delay their implementation and weaken their effect.
As a result, almost any kind of climate action is still largely voluntary for the private sector, which is woefully inadequate to achieve transformative change. We are still a long way off, it seems, from seeing real equity metrics in any transition plans.
For too long, the focus of the just transition in SA has been on jobs that will be lost in the fossil fuel industry. This narrative is deliberately deployed by the fossil fuel lobby to delay action and prolong their own destructive dominance. Instead, our focus should be on justice and equity, which means recognising that the price of failing to transition will be far higher than the cost of standing still.
This article was first published in News24 on 29 January 2025.
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