Africa joins appeal for just transition from fossil fuels

Developing states and labour activists are looking forward to next year’s United Nations Climate Conference (COP30) in Brazil, for the realisation of a just transition from fossil fuels.

Disappointed at the setback early this month during COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan trade unions and campaigners are seeking a fair deal for workers whose jobs will be affected by the transition away from planet-heating fossil fuels.

From coal mines and oil refineries to car factories and construction, the global shift to cleaner sources of energy will alter the nature of employment, leading to job losses in some sectors and creation in others.

The transition will also create opportunities and risks in clean technology supply chains, and new threats and benefits for the communities where the changes are happening.

Delivered little
Writing in the authoritative UK-based Climate Home News, Vivian Chime says that in a bid to share the pain and gain more equally, governments at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt launched a “Just Transition Work Programme” (JTWP).

But so far it has delivered little – and talks on how the programme should proceed in practice ended with agreement at COP29.

The Azerbaijani presidency running the talks instead focused on landing anew deal on climate finance for developing countries, and governments ended up delaying further discussions until the mid-year climate talks next June in Bonn, Germany and COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

International Trade Union Confederation (ITU) global policy coordinator Bert De Wel, tagged the Baku summit “a wasted COP” in terms of implementing the JTWP.

He said the just transition was not given the attention it deserves, noting that the interests of workers are often “kicked out or minimalised at UN talks. “When there is reference to rights, they tend to leave out labour rights. We just want to be mentioned too.”

However, others said no deal on just transition at COP29 was better than a bad deal, Chime continues. Kenya’s Fatuma Hussein, who is Africa’s lead negotiator on a just transition, said she preferred the option of having “no outcome” than “putting the process at risk.

She explained that developed countries in Baku had avoided discussing finance, international cooperation and adaptation to climate impacts in the context of a just transition – and this was “the biggest problem”.

Telling developing nations, including those in Africa, that they must work towards just transition on their own would be “missing the point” and not delivering on the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, she added.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), climate change and extreme weather conditions affect 70 per cent of the world’s economic sectors, with rising global temperatures and environmental risks harming businesses and workers through damage to property and productivity.

Job losses
It is estimated that transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy would lead to about 6 million job losses but would in turn create around 24 million new jobs by 2030.

Under the ILO’s guidelines for a just transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient world, the organisation calls for economic, environmental and social policies as well as education and training, to help companies, workers, investors, and consumers play a proactive role.

Climate campaigners and labour rights activists had looked – in vain – to COP29 to agree a work plan for governments to help them take the concrete steps needed.

ITU’s De Wel says the outcomes they were hoping for included provision of finance to implement national-level efforts to secure a just transition and guidance on preparing new national climate plans based on consultation with workers representatives and trade unions.

Support is also required to put in place social protection systems for workers who might lose their jobs, as well as defining what the energy transition will mean for the future of employment and industrial development within countries.

Taking lessons
“Systematising these things and taking lessons out of it for the whole group of countries – that’s what we want and recommend,” said De Wel. He called for a broad global view of just transition that is not narrowly focused on Polish or German coal miners, for example, “without taking into account the robbery of minerals and materials from Africa” or denying the right of countries in the Global South “to have industrial development.”

Amos Wemanya, a campaigner with Greenpeace Africa, said Africa’s colonial history continues to pose development and economic challenges that fuel indebtedness and keep the continent mainly as provider of raw materials to the rest of the world and a dumping ground for low-value- added products.

Wemanya said current global trade policies and finance flows worsen the structural socio-economic and technological inequalities between developed and developing countries and should be addressed the UN’s Just Transition Work Programme.

At the local level, Transparency International research and policy coordinator Gvantsa Gverdtsiteli said communities needed to own and benefit directly from transition projects, such as renewable energy power facilities, in their area.

Attention should be paid to ensuring that “their economic status is changing, that they get better opportunities and better living conditions, and their socioeconomic environment improves, she added.

With early action needed from Brazil next year, climate activists insist that the JTWP must deliver on its mandate of leaving no one behind as the world consumes less fossil fuel and more clean energy, while ensuring fair collaboration in global efforts to address the challenges posed by the transition.