Research partnerships promoting global just transitions

South Africa’s Just Energy Transition: A Global Test Case

South Africa’s energy transition is framed as an important global test case and has received significant international financing through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) agreement signed at COP26. However, ensuring that the transition is a “just” one necessitates that the voices of the workers and communities dependent on the coal-energy sector are heard in what represents the one of the most significant socio-economic upheavals in recent history.  

Strengthening Partnerships: South African Delegation Visits Leeds

To this end, the School of Politics and International Studies and Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC) welcomed visitors from South Africa in May 2025 as part of an ongoing research partnership into the possibilities for a just energy transition in South Africa. The delegation included three representatives from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM): Deputy Secretary in Mpumalanga Province, Prince Mabowe Nkadimeng; National Energy Sector Coordinator Khangela Bayloi; and Regional Educator, Kgothatso Aphane. It also included our long-established partners Dr Martin Kaggwa, Pulane Mafoea and Sinenhlanhla Sithole from the NUM’s research unit, the Sam Tambani Research Institute (SATRI).  

Alex Beresford and Ruth Bookbinder have previously worked with SATRI to conduct interviews, workshops and focus groups with NUM members which have revealed complex, intersectional challenges and injustices in the transition.  

Aims of the Visit: Building Knowledge and Strategy

This week-long visit was funded by the University of Leeds International Strategy Fund and had five core aims: 1) plan and develop educational materials for NUM members; 2) disseminate project findings to academic and public audiences; 3) brainstorm potential union initiatives and platforms that promote justice in transition; 4) contribute to our partners research capacity; 5) to plan the next steps in our research partnership. 

International Dialogue and Solidarity at the Just Transition Workshop

The first of the public events was a one-day workshop co-hosted with the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change co-organised with Vera Trappmann and Jo Cutter. Louise Heery opened the event, which brought together researchers and union representatives from Germany and the UK to share experiences of transitions and was an opportunity to build international networks of solidarity and cooperation. In addition to speakers from South Africa, presenters included Sam Perry and Dave Pike from the UK’s TUC, Felix Fleckenstein from the German Confederation of Trade Unions, and Sarah Mewes from Germany’s Next Economy Lab. Germany, South Africa and the UK have had varying experiences of transitions yet there were common concerns on the impact of privatising the grid and energy distribution, building local manufacturing capacity to support an energy transition, and ensuring that workers in fossil fuel industries are reskilled and supported to work in jobs of equal value in a decarbonised economy. To continue these conversations and provide further chances to exchange knowledge around navigating an energy transition, we are planning a visit to Germany in 2026 with our UK and South African partners.

Planning for Impact: From Educational Tools to Policy Engagement

We used this event as a jumping off point for internal workshops to plan our strategy for disseminating our findings to workers in South Africa in September, in addition to materials for NUM leadership. One planned output is a ‘negotiators handbook’ of key terms and technologies concerning the energy transition for union leaders who represent workers’ interests at national policy forums. We also began planning for an international summit in Johannesburg in 2026 to bring together a bigger group of stakeholders from communities in the coal belt to produce a set of requirements for a just transition in the coal region.  

Voices at the Table: Advocating for Justice in Policy Spaces

The final event for the week was a panel on just transition at a Chatham House event exploring “The Future of UK-Africa Relations” with an audience of international diplomats, business leaders, NGO campaigners, and academics. Lord Oates, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa (APPG), opened the panel by discussing the APPG’s newly released report: ‘Africa’s Just Energy Transition: How Can the UK Support?’. This was followed by Alex, Ruth, and Vera Trappmann (the PI for the 14 country project that this work was begun under) sharing the academic findings from the project.  

The NUM’s Prince Nkadimeng then rounded off the panel speaking passionately about workers’ experiences of what has been an unjust transition thus far. Prince highlighted the damage and hardships experienced by workers and communities following the decommissioning of Komati Power Station in Mpumalanga province, reflecting on his own personal experiences growing up in the area. Discussion participants included the South African High Commissioner to the UK. As the UK is a major funder of the JETP agreement with South Africa, the opportunity for us and NUM to present evidence directly in this forum was invaluable. This has enabled us to begin engaging with Lord Oates and the APPG.  

Towards a Socially Informed Transition

Our discussions over the week underscored the importance of ensuring that technical transitions are socially informed. These are critical discussions in South Africa where an energy transition must seek to tackle historical injustices of racial capitalism while mitigating future injustices.   

The initial research for this project was funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation and the University of Leeds’s Participatory Research Fund. The International Strategy Fund supported this visit and future costs of the planned activities associated with the project.