South Africa’s transition to a greener economy features prominently in the long-term development vision of the country, and is an integral part of the country’s national climate change response strategy. Despite significant gains in socio-economic development since its transition to democracy, the country continues to face the triple challenges of rising unemployment, income inequality and poverty – amid a slowdown in economic growth. Sustainability transitions offer new ways of shifting the trajectory of South Africa’s resource-intensive economy towards low-carbon pathways linked to the country’s transformative development agenda. Calls for inclusive approaches to greening the South African economy, which addresses the most vulnerable in society and ensures that the benefits of sustainability innovations reach all South Africans, are becoming more pronounced as sustainable development policy reforms are being implemented. The question that should be placed centre stage in South Africa’s sustainability discourse is whether notions of justice and inclusivity are being sufficiently addressed in the design and implementation of policy and programme interventions. This book explores South Africa’s sustainability transition through reflections on critical policy, economic, technological, social and environmental drivers. It provides a synthesis of theoretical insights, including new models and concepts, and praxis through illustrations from South Africa’s growing landscape of sustainable development policies and programmes. Finally, it assesses whether these transition pathways are beginning to reconfigure the system-level structures hindering the country’s goal of ‘ensuring environmental sustainability and an equitable transition to a low-carbon economy’.

This book provides a succinct overview of the evolution of policies addressing energy and climate justice in South Africa. Drawing on a range of analytical perspectives, including socio-technical studies, just transitions, and critical political economy, it explains why South Africa’s energy transition from a coal-dependent, centralised power generation and distribution system has been so slow, and reveals the types of socio-political inequalities that persist across regimes and energy sources. Topics explored include critical approaches to the South African state and its state-owned energy provider, Eskom; the political ecologies of coal and water; the politics of non-renewable energy alternatives; as well as the trajectory and fate of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP), the country’s major renewable energy policy. The book concludes with reflections on alternative, neglected energy and development paths, suggesting how the political economy of South Africa’s energy system could be further transformed for the better.

This book proposes transformative, realist methodology for skills research and planning through an analysis of case studies of the changing world of work, new learning pathways and educational system challenges. Studies of the green economy and sustainability transitions are a growing field internationally, however there are few books that link this interest to the development of skills. This book draws on, and showcases, the experience and insights of researcher-practitioners who are at the cutting edge in this emerging field, internationally and in South Africa. The context for this book is South Africa, but application is worldwide. In many ways indicative of the global picture, South Africa is in the grip of economic and environmental imperatives, searching for safe and just transitions. The authors present a new, embedded transitioning systems model for studying skills for a sustainable, just future. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, ecological economics and skills planning.

With transitions to more sustainable ways of living already underway, this book examines how we understand the underlying dynamics of the transitions that are unfolding. Without this understanding, we enter the future in a state of informed bewilderment. Every day we are bombarded by reports about ecosystem breakdown, social conflict, economic stagnation and a crisis of identity. There is mounting evidence that deeper transitions are underway that suggest we may be entering another period of great transformation equal in significance to the agricultural revolution some 13,000 years ago or the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. This book helps readers make sense of our global crisis and the dynamics of transition that could result in a shift from the industrial epoch that we live in now to a more sustainable and equitable age. The global renewable energy transition that is already underway holds the key to the wider just transition. However, the evolutionary potential of the present also manifests in the mushrooming of ecocultures, new urban visions, sustainability-oriented developmental states and new ways of learning and researching. Shedding light on the highly complex challenge of a sustainable and just transition, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with establishing a more sustainable and equitable world. Ultimately, this is a book about hope but without easy answers.

Current economic growth strategies around the world are rapidly depleting the natural resources and ecosystem services that we depend on. Just Transitions provides a comprehensive overview of these challenges from a Global South perspective. The authors ask: How do developing countries eradicate poverty via economic development, while at the same time facing the consequences of global warming and dwindling levels of cheap oil, productive soils, metals, clean water supplies, and forest products? How do they address widening inequalities in income as well as the need to rebuild ecosystem services and natural resources? The book considers the theme of a just transition, which reconciles the sustainable use of natural resources with a pervasive commitment to sufficiency (where overconsumers are satisfied with less so that underconsumers can secure enough). It explores a range of different viewpoints and ideas and synthesizes them to illuminate new ways of thinking from a sustainability perspective. It rethinks development with special reference to the greening of the developmental state, explores the key role that cities could play in the transition to a more sustainably urbanized world, and highlights the neglect of soils in the global discussions around the potential of sustainable agriculture to feed the world. Case studies drawn from the African continent detail the challenges, but they are set in the context of global trends. The authors conclude with their experiences in building a community that aspires to live sustainably.

Balanced Perspectives on Different Urban Ecosystems

Why is societal transition not simply a matter of change management or normal policy design? South Africa is living proof of the ability of a society to reinvent and reinstall itself. With the advent of new societal challenges, came the need for real societal innovation, especially in sectors where it was never deemed necessary or possible before. This book asks: What type of governance is helpful for developing new societal institutions and systems that can overcome systemic crises in emerging economies and fragile communities? What emerges is a compilation of chapters that introduce different parts of a solution which can be used in developing both a growing body of practices of ?governed? societal transitions and the associated transition of governance. The Governance of Transitions ? The Transitions of Governance, in part, aims to provide building blocks which government and society could use to develop strategies for creating sustainable outcomes. It considers what kind of leadership, organisation or methods for accountability enable new types of governance and what the most important barriers are.