South Africa’s just transition must do more than replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. It must reshape the economy around decent work, improved livelihoods, climate resilience, and the socioeconomic rights of workers and communities.
Writing in COSATU’s 40th Anniversary Special Edition of The Shopsteward, the IEJ’s Joan Stott sets out alternatives for financing a worker-centred transition. Drawing on research commissioned by the IEJ and COSATU, she examines how fiscal policy, monetary policy, and development finance institutions can mobilise public resources for the transition.
The article proposes a R100 billion-a-year climate response fund, reforms to the South African Reserve Bank’s mandate and policy tools, and a stronger, more accountable role for the Industrial Development Corporation. It argues that public financing is essential to ensuring that the transition supports inclusive economic growth, reduces unemployment, poverty, and inequality, and enables the structural transformation of South Africa’s economy.
Joan’s article appears on pages 76–79 of The Shopsteward, Volume 33.6, COSATU’s 40th Anniversary Special Edition.