As South Africa marks Youth Month, the government once again appears determined to decide the country’s future behind closed doors — this time by signing long-term energy loan agreements that young people and affected communities had no meaningful opportunity to shape.
Earlier this month (June 2026), the government announced that Opec had signed an energy infrastructure loan agreement with South Africa, reportedly to be repaid over eight years. Despite the enormous implications for the country’s economy, climate, future and public finances, there has been little transparency about what exactly the money will fund.
Can South Africans reasonably assume this is support for a just energy transition? Or is it an attempt to further the interests of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of future generations?
These are not abstract questions. Opec and its affiliated financing institutions have historically funded oil and gas infrastructure projects across the globe. These include pipelines, refineries, gas expansion and petrochemical developments designed to increase fossil fuel exploration and production.
At a time when climate science demands a rapid move away from coal, oil and gas, South Africans should not be satisfied with carrying the risk of being locked into stranded assets that might burden taxpayers — young and old — long after today’s politicians are gone.
Where is the justice in SA’s energy planning process?
The situation becomes even darker when one recognises that the government has, at times, not conducted proper public consultation on the country’s energy future for nearly two decades. And when we consider the shocking findings from the International Institute for Sustainable Development — that South Africa’s fossil fuel subsidies have tripled over the past three years to about R110 billion — the country’s energy planning and governance have significant shortcomings.
In 2008, Parliament – representing the people of South Africa – passed the National Energy Act. Section 6 of the NEA requires the government to consult the public about the country’s future energy pathway. Planning should take climate change, environmental harm and energy affordability into account. The failure to implement section 6 could mean that major energy decisions are being made without transparent, evidence-based planning or meaningful public participation.
Subsequently, the consequences have been severe. Over the intervening years, South Africans have watched the government pursue one controversial (and costly) energy scheme after another — from the unlawful nuclear procurement deal and Karpowership agreements to highly unreliable coal plants. It is difficult to believe that many of the projects would ever have survived genuine public scrutiny had proper, accountable energy planning processes been in place.
Recognising this fatal flaw, civil society organisations The Green Connection and the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute eventually took the government to court to force democratic and transparent energy planning. They won. And although the government settled the matter, finally gazetting section 6 in 2024, the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources has not implemented it.
To stop the bad decisions, South Africa needs an Integrated Energy Plan
No meaningful draft assumptions for an updated Integrated Energy Plan have been released for public comment. Nor has the public been involved in any urgent national conversation that should have been convened to discuss what kind of energy system South Africa needs.
Instead, billions continue to be channelled towards what seem to be politically convenient vanity projects that appear disconnected from any evidence-based plans. Publicly driven energy planning would show that there are many ways to achieve energy justice for all.
Despite the previous nuclear procurement process being struck down as unlawful, new nuclear ambitions are once again being floated. Never mind that all the same challenges relating to cost, timelines and environmental impact remain.
Then we had Minister Gwede Mantashe proudly celebrating the acquisition of the Sapref refinery for R1, as though there is such a thing as a free lunch. But South Africans know better. Residents in South Durban have been paying the real cost of fossil fuel infrastructure for decades. Residents living near Sapref suffer illness, pollution and premature death while the government repeatedly fails to provide justice or compensation for the health impacts they endure. Furthermore, the eventual costs of environmental rehabilitation, refinery redevelopment and decommissioning will probably run into billions of rand.
Who will ultimately pay for that? Will it be those politicians who sign the deals and move on before the consequences arrive? No. It will be ordinary South Africans, including today’s and tomorrow’s young people, who inherit a debt they cannot afford, in addition to climate disasters they did not create and collapsing infrastructure about which they were not consulted. Yet these are the same young people who face unemployment and cannot benefit from opportunities in green industrial markets.
Climate action must become an active part of life #JustTransition
Climate change is costing lives across Southern Africa. More than 400 people died as a result of devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal in recent years, which also destroyed homes and schools. Heatwaves strain basic services and drought threatens food systems and livelihoods. These impacts are not accidental. They are directly linked to the continued burning of coal, oil and gas because of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Even though South Africa is the continent’s largest carbon emitter, the government seems prepared to deepen dependence on the very industries driving the crisis. Make it make sense!
If this latest Opec-linked loan is intended to expand gas infrastructure, South Africans should be deeply concerned. Gas is not a bridge to a just transition. And even worse, methane, the primary component of fossil gas, is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Therefore, investing billions in new gas projects risks creating stranded assets while accelerating climate instability. And, as experience shows, it is ordinary people who pay the ultimate price of climate disasters.
Because they will live with the consequences the longest, young people might better understand the urgency of addressing the climate crisis, while some political leaders seem prepared to leave the problem to those who come after them. This observation, of what appears to be a failure in accountability, is irresponsible.
Tomorrow’s leaders must act for climate justice, today
As we commemorate the sacrifices made by the youth of 1976 — young people who resisted having a future imposed on them — we must recognise the disturbing parallels today. Once again, decisions with generational consequences are being made without meaningful democratic participation or consent. Once again, young people are expected to bear the costs of choices they were never allowed to shape.
But there is another path
South Africa could instead choose to build a genuinely democratic energy plan grounded in public participation, climate science and economic justice. It could invest in more renewable energy, public transport, local manufacturing and energy efficiency. New technologies, appropriate to the country’s development needs, could result in new skills and industry. Done properly, a just transition could create hundreds of thousands — even millions — of decent jobs while reducing energy poverty and strengthening resilience against climate shocks.
Instead of locking the country into fossil fuel dependency, the government should be opening the doors to public participation and allowing young people to help design the economy they will inherit.
Unfortunately, South Africans cannot afford another decade of energy decisions made in secrecy and justified after the fact. Therefore, we believe that the government should immediately halt new fossil fuel expansion projects and prioritise the completion of a transparent, democratic Integrated Energy Plan that genuinely reflects the needs of all people, not the interests of politically connected elites or foreign oil agendas.
We need South Africa’s young people to object. We cannot allow anyone other than South Africans themselves, through democratic processes, to determine the country’s energy future because then we are allowing the future itself to be stolen from our youth once again.
Lisa Makuala, advocacy and programmes lead at The Green Connection and Liz McDaid, strategic lead at The Green Connection.