A just energy transition cannot only be good for corporations. It must include workers, the unemployed and young people.
In 1955, the Congress of the People was held in Kliptown to commit to a vision of South Africa, where the people would share the country’s wealth. They pledged to work together for a country that recognised the burden placed on the oppressed. The people shall govern, they said.
Today, in mining communities facing the task of decarbonisation, one hears similar rumblings. Mines have exposed mining-affected communities to deadly air pollution with little accountability.
Mining-affected communities such as the Sekhukhune Combined Mining Affected Community (SCMAC) in Limpopo are working to turn the tide. Through research conducted in partnership with development partners such as 350Africa.org, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), Ahinasa and Lawyers for Human Rights, the SCMAC is building a campaign to transfer the wealth generated from mining activities to “the people as a whole” through socially owned renewable energy.
The vision of social ownership or renewable energy is to enable rural communities without access to capital to own, control and benefit from the renewable energy transition. It is about treating electricity as a public good and a fundamental human right. Through socially owned renewable energy, the SCMAC could reduce energy costs, create jobs and unlock real economic freedom for a community devastated by the deep-rooted injustices of South Africa’s minerals and energy complex.
Under our new dispensation, social labour plans also have a role to play in uplifting communities, but they are inadequate and too often amount to empty promises. Researchers at Mining Affected United in Action (Macua) revealed that more than R284 million allocated for social labour plan delivery in the mining areas went missing from 2022 to 2024.
In the context of South Africa’s unreliable energy supply and efforts to decarbonise the economy, mining companies are now investing in renewable energy infrastructure to secure their operations. Mining companies in Sekhukhune and across the country can contribute to a just transition by investing in socially owned renewable energy projects through meaningful social labour plans.
Partnering with communities to purchase any excess renewable energy generated locally can create a sustainable economic relationship and further encourage community-led projects. Community energy projects are not a panacea to the energy and climate crisis in South Africa, but they can make a significant contribution to the pursuit of climate and energy justice, especially in marginalised communities where current electricity tariffs are unaffordable.
The most direct route to expanding renewable energy at scale and for the public good would be through our national utility, Eskom. A green new Eskom would be able to use existing infrastructure and the technical and operational expertise in electricity generation and transmission to integrate large-scale renewable energy into the national system in a far more cost-efficient way than thousands of community projects.
The recently announced Green Eskom subsidiary is being set up to focus on new generation capacity using renewable energy which is a positive step in mitigating the worst impacts of climate change but more clarity is needed. Will this still require that costs are recovered from users, 55% of whom, live below roughly R1600 per person a month? Will the 30.4 million people in South Africa living below the poverty line be excluded from wealth ownership forever, further entrenching unequal patterns of ownership? Have we given up hope that the industries and trade could be controlled to assist the well-being of the people? Is this not our only hope?
A just transition cannot be good for corporations alone. It must be just for workers, the unemployed and young people, or it will fail. Corporate incentives only marginally register the well-being of people or the environment — so-called externalities. These very corporate incentives are what have led to the climate crisis, with fossil fuel companies continuing to profit and grow despite widespread climate devastation already happening around the world.
The SCMAC has argued that rural communities can own, control, and benefit from the renewable energy transition through cooperatives, trusts or other forms of collective ownership.
Electricity remains a fundamental human right provided for by the constitutional and statutory duties of Eskom and municipal government. Access to electricity is additionally seen as essential for enjoying other basic rights such as human dignity, housing, clean water, healthcare and the ability to work or run a business. Living without electricity is not only inconvenient, it’s dangerous and can be deadly. Ignoring this crisis is a failure of justice. Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane recently reported that in the six months before February 2025, more than 2,000 informal structures in South Africa burned down as a result of paraffin lamps and open fires for heat or light. It becomes crystal clear when babies are killed in preventable shack fires that everyone deserves electricity.
The anti-apartheid struggle taught us that those in power rarely act in the interest of the working class out of goodwill; they only respond when they have no other choice. A truly just transition won’t be given; it must be won through collective power that makes resistance too costly for corporations and political elites.
That’s why groups such as the SCMAC are proposing a new path for mining-affected communities: one where Eskom, the department of mineral resources and energy, and extractivist industries support rural and township communities with grants, training and resources for community-owned renewable energy. This vision is rooted in local control and real ownership.
Ferron Pedro is a senior campaigner for 350Africa.org and a leading member of the Climate Justice Coalition.