South Africa actually does have a plan that puts people and the planet first

Dear DM168 Readers,

Our Burning Planet writer Ethan van Diemen wrote this week’s DM168 lead story from Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt, where he is attending the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27). Ethan has talked to global experts who care deeply about the fate of our planet, and most of them have told him how they are blown away by the work South Africa has done in its Just Energy Transition (JET) planning.

Now I know, as we battle the umpteenth bout of staring into the abyss of our living rooms, singing “hello darkness my old friend”, and we hear about another round of the morbid symptoms of our political idiocracy, it’s hard to believe that South Africa can be any good at anything at all.

But, according to Ethan’s extensive interviews, our Just Energy Transition team not only devised a plan to reduce our carbon emissions and through it potentially save us from floods, droughts and rising sea levels but, crucially, also had deep consultations with the communities, workers and miners who would be most affected by a transition away from coal. It seems too good to be true but, dear readers, South Africa actually does have a plan that puts people and the planet first.

I know you might ask why you should care and what’s the catch? President Cyril Ramaphosa and the JET plan have attracted billions in investments for the transition, amounts that could just as well be Monopoly money for a population struggling to make a monthly salary stretch to the next payday (if they are fortunate enough to have a salary or wage at all).

And then there’s that little factoid about who’s actually governing, or rather misgoverning, our country. If they stay in charge, won’t the investments meant to clean up our energy act go the way all money goes in South Africa, down the gullets of ANC gluttons?

Journalists are not sangomas (not all of us), but we can read between the lines, join the dots and make some educated guesses based on the many experts, deep throats, leaders, reports, plans and documents to which we have access. We will keep on following the money and expose any corruption in this plan if we unearth it.

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Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

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We should not let our pilfering governing party distract us from the fact that the climate crisis is real. And that the JET plan on paper is a global first in its effort to deal with the crisis.

It was the drought that brought Cape Town to a near Day Zero coupled with the UN’s 2018 special report, warning that global warming would cause human catastrophe if we did not limit it, that moved Daily Maverick journalist Kevin Bloom to start the Our Burning Planet section of Daily Maverick, now headed by Daily Maverick Deputy Editor Jillian Green and supported by the Absa Group.

Kevin is part of South Africa’s biggest team of journalists dedicated to covering climate change and the solutions. Ethan is a member of that team and his dispatches from Sharm el-Sheikh are really worth your attention.

Write to me at [email protected] about your views on our Just Energy Transition or any of the stories that pique your interest in this week’s paper.

Yours in defence of truth and our planet.

Heather

PS: In the spirit of truth, I apologise for a mistake in last week’s letter. I called it COP22 rather than COP27. My bad. Sorry.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.