Description
South Africa has an unprecedented opportunity to be the world’s first coal-dependent economy to successfully transition to renewable energy (the energy source of the twenty-first century). Additionally, South Africa is unique in that it has an aging fleet of coal-fired power plants that must be decommissioned over the next two decades.
As such, the country is left with no choice, it must increase its energy generation capacity to compensate for the closures. The rationale for a coal-to renewables energy transition can be traced all the way back to South Africa’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, which outlines a Peak-Plateau-Decline trajectory for its carbon emissions.
Domestically, the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2019–2030 commits South Africa to a decarbonization path based on the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants and rapid adoption of renewable energy. However, what will the cost of this energy transition be, and what just transition approaches might accelerate South Africa’s political economy’s radical transformation?
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