The JET must be deep: redistributive, participatory and youth-led
South Africa’s Just Energy Transition stands at a historic turning point as recent hard-won legal victories have redefined who gets to shape our energy future.
In April 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the government’s appeal in the landmark #DeadlyAir case, affirming that toxic air pollution in the Highveld violates constitutional rights to a healthy environment and that the state has a non-negotiable duty to act. Months later, in December 2024, the Constitutional Court struck down plans for 1,500 megawatts of new coal capacity in the #CancelCoal judgment, declaring such projects unconstitutional and affirming that the rights of children and future generations must guide energy policy. Then, in July 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion confirming that governments globally, including ours, are legally bound to act on climate change. Also this year, the Climate Change Act 22 of 2024, was proclaimed into law, further creating new pathways for court victories, and providing a solid legal backing for climate action.
These rulings are launchpads for procedural justice, which refers to the fact that outcomes of decisions must not only enable justice, but the processes through which decisions are made should also be justice-centered and representative. Principles of transparency and inclusion are important in this regard. They affirm that environmental justice is an immediate need and that those most affected by energy and climate decisions must be central to making them.
Although the courtrooms are declaring that youth should be active participants in determining their future, youth and communities are still being excluded from the rooms deciding that future.
Performative or procedural consultations?
South Africa has a legacy of inadequate consultations with youth when it comes to decision making spaces, nationwide plans, and policies that concern their future.
If South Africa was serious about its G20 presidency theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability”, these principles would be enshrined throughout the national policy-making arena, including in consultations on the Integrated Resource Plan 2024, the Integrated Energy Plan (2026), and on the road to COP30 in Belém. The recent government-led process to revise and update South Africa’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) is a stark reminder that intent is not impact.
Consultations on the updated NDCs were so poorly publicised, details spread like rumours and not democratic invitations. Venue details were withheld until the last minute, and online links were not widely shared. There was no time to mobilise, and no logistical support offered. Transparency was reduced to a tick-box exercise. And participation, a performance. Let’s call it what it is: an intentional exclusion. When people are overwhelmed, excluded or uninformed, it becomes easier to avoid accountability, sideline dissent, and push elite-led energy agendas that pass as climate action but fail the people most affected. If this is a demonstration of the country’s commitment to inclusion, we have a long way to go and a lot to monitor as the G20 Leaders summit draws closer.
Beyond the consultation process, the content of the NDC further illustrated who the government sees as actors of the just transition. The updated NDC document mentions women twice, both times as “vulnerable.” There is no gender strategy. No disaggregated data. And youth? Framed only as job seekers and beneficiaries of others actions. There was no youth-specific consultation process, no investment in climate education or technical training, and no commitment to integrate youth voices into governance spaces. A “youth job register” is not a climate policy, it is a placeholder. Yet we know that women and youth are more than ‘vulnerable and unemployed’, they are active participants and implementers of the just transition.
Unlocking youth potential means moving beyond symbolism to structural power: equipping them with education, training, and decision-making authority, not just through side events, but in boardrooms and procurement committees shaping the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan’s (JET-IP) R500 billion pipeline.
Green hydrogen or green colonialism?
Nowhere is the cost of exclusion clearer than in South Africa’s rush toward green hydrogen, a key feature of the JET-IP.
Green hydrogen is framed as a silver bullet for export revenue and decarbonisation, its current trajectory risks becoming a textbook case of “green colonialism”, where global capital and geopolitical agendas extract value from African land, labour and resources, while sidelining the very communities meant to benefit. Public money (like the JET-IP) should not be used to subsidise industries decarbonisation, industry must fund its own transition, with the government mandating it through clear policy.
Young people’s energy future does not need false solutions or dangerous distractions. It needs rapid, massive scale-up of proven, distributed renewables and efficiency measures — technologies that create jobs, cut bills, and clean the air now. Green hydrogen, in its current form, does none of this for most South Africans. Consultations have been opaque, and contracts negotiated behind closed doors.
If we are serious about justice, green hydrogen must be redesigned with youth and communities, from curriculum to contract clause. Hydrogen initiatives must be grounded in energy additionality, ensuring renewable power used is new and surplus, not diverted from essential local use. Skills pipelines must feed directly into project supply chains. Community benefit agreements must be legally binding, not voluntary. Otherwise, we risk replicating the extractive models of the past, this time under the banner of “green transition.”
Namibia’s experience where youth input remains limited despite massive foreign investment offers a cautionary lesson. Africa can profit from the hydrogen boom, but only if we design it for people, not portfolios.
Moving beyond tokenism to true consultation
As South Africa presides on the G20, the just energy transition must be more than rhetoric. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development rightly identifies inequality, skills, eco-entrepreneurship, and labour rights as core pillars. But without youth as co-designers, these remain hollow. The demands are clear: direct funding for youth- and women-led initiatives; invest in localised skills and innovation ecosystems; value care-centred public health; and digital inclusion. Youth are not waiting for invitations; we are ready to draft the terms and implement the deliverables.
Let the call be clear: Governments must listen deeply, openly and structurally. Civil society must put pressure by mobilising its constituencies. Procedural justice must not be the elephant in every decision-making room and we must ask: are youth, youth with disabilities, women and informal workers present? Are they resourced to engage? Are their rights, and the rights of future generations, being weighed in every decision?
If youth are not central in shaping the just transition, it is not just.
Bertha Letsoko is the International Cooperation and Policy Campaigner at the African Climate Reality Project.
Sibusiso Mazomba is the Advocacy Coordinator at the African Climate Alliance.Members of the Africa Civil Society Organisations G20 Climate, Energy & Sustainable Finance Network.