The National Planning Commission’s (NPC’s) virtual passing of the “just transition” baton to the Presidential Co-ordinating Commission on Climate Change last week was a bittersweet affair for me. On the one hand, seeing so many stalwarts of the just energy transition represented on the commission gives me hope. On the other, I have a growing concern that this whole discussion is a red herring.
According to the last official publication from the NPC on the matter, the concept of a just transition had been defined as a “social compact” that will deliver “a low-carbon, climate resilient economy and society, that also includes defending and protecting the rights of the most vulnerable, including women, children, people with disabilities, those that are poor and the working class more broadly”.
However, Cosatu’s communications on this “social compact”, which was signed off at the National Economic Development and Labour Council on December 8, represents almost none of these things. While the great unwashed are not yet privy to the finer details of their version of the compact, what has been released speaks broadly to jobs, corruption, remuneration, generation and the holy grail — the capacity to use pension funds to write off Eskom debt. Indeed, if all goes according to plan the deal could result in more than R100bn of debt held by the Government Employees Pension Fund being written off.
By contrast, the vernacular view on the just transition is far more simple. Between Sasol, Eskom and the coal mining sector there are about 140,000 people employed in coal-based jobs in SA, and we need to protect those livelihoods in the face of a decarbonising energy sector. It’s important that we are mindful of the workers who toil away to provide the fuel to keep our predominantly coal-powered fleet pumping out electricity, but consumption both on- and offshore is in steady decline.
About 11,000MW of coal power is scheduled for decommissioning between now and 2030, while as our primary earner of foreign exchange coal exports posted their fourth successive year of contraction last year. Coal is in trouble, and if we are going to start delivering on this social compact we need to develop new green jobs urgently.
You’ll imagine my frustration then, when last week’s budget speech announced that “embedded generation regulation will be eased within three months; emergency power procurement bids, as well as procurement of additional power in line with the IRP2019, will be announced in the coming weeks”. This is almost exactly the same position we were in at last year’s state of the nation address.
Statements such as “electricity regulations were amended to enable municipalities to procure power from IPPs [independent power producers]” are disingenuous to say the least. Yes, the section 34 application forms have been released by the department of mineral resources & energy, but as there is zero guidance for municipalities on the process no municipal energy procurement from IPPs has taken place yet, despite a plethora of shovel-ready projects waiting in the wings.
This complete lack of action, including the six-year gap between round 4.5 and 5 of the Renewable Energy IPP Procurement Programme bid windows, is testament to the oppositional relationship the department has to renewable energy. What makes this worse is that the concept of a just transition is being used as the Trojan horse that continues to hamstring the creation of jobs in the rest of the economy.
As we debate how best to protect jobs in an already dying coal sector, hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed elsewhere, and as the state continues to dither, those who can are taking power into their own hands. Literally. Unless the department takes decisive action quickly it will be the poor, who cannot afford their own energy supply, who are skewered on the horns of a “social compact” while the rest of us move off-grid.
• Maguire holds a master’s degree in global change studies from Wits and has been developing green economy solutions for the private sector, NGOs and the state for more than a decade.
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