How women's empowerment drives South Africa's Just Energy Transition

By Yuri Ramkissoon

On Saturday, we marked the 50th Anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) as declared by the United Nations in 1975, the same year it declared International Women’s Year. IWD continues to see exponential globalised growth as a prolific, mainstream movement participated in by millions worldwide. Such diverse mainstream activity demonstrates the adaptability of IWD in addressing global, regional, and local priorities each year.

Research by UN Women and the World Bank has shown that gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to economic development and environmental sustainability, which indicates that while gender equality is a fundamental human right, it is also an economic imperative for promoting equality.

A Just Transition Can Deliver the Beijing Commitments

This year’s IWD on March 8 was themed “Accelerate Action”, focusing on the need and the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. The 50th Anniversary calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face.

Equally this year, the world celebrates 30 years of achievement on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a visionary 1995 plan agreed by 189 governments to achieve the equal rights of all women and girls. Agreed to at the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Platform centres on 12 areas of action – ranging from jobs and the economy, political participation, peace, the environment, ending violence against women, and more.

Effective integration of gender dimensions is crucial for the achievement of all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 7 to ensure access to affordable, dependable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.

In the past, the link between gender and climate change was absent from climate policies and programmes. South Africa has a Gender Action Plan as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to deliberately address gender issues in adaptation, mitigation, capacity-building, and climate finance.

Gender equality is key in the just transition and ensuring universal energy access. The sustainable energy transition can create benefits and opportunities for both women and men. Women-led initiatives and projects are successful in the new energy space, especially sustainable energy solutions at the community level.

Women are also increasingly active in the energy workforce and as entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), contributing to economic growth and industrial development. The dialogue on gender and just transition has clearly shifted from women being identified as a vulnerable group to them as key agents of change as consumers, producers, innovators, and decision-makers across the energy sector.

Our climate action and transition should not be gender neutral.

South Africa is set on a path to transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient society. However, socio-economic challenges including unemployment, poverty, and inequality will hamper this transition if not addressed. Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and increases the vulnerability of women, the marginalised, and underrepresented populations to gender-based violence, poverty, starvation, and other injustices.

The resulting gender disparities are further magnified by a highly unequal world. Complicating factors in recent years include the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic, economic crises, conflict, and the climate emergency, all of which intersect with surging pushback against gender equality and polarised geo-political environments.

Traditional mechanisms for coping with climate stressors often come at the expense of women and girls due to resource constraints. Gender-equitable and inclusive action is critical to sustaining bold climate ambitions. A gender-responsive climate strategy not only has the ability to reduce gender inequality but also elevates and empowers women as climate leaders.

Sustainable energy infrastructure has the potential to be transformative by providing much-needed energy access, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as increasing opportunities for women’s empowerment, employment, and gender equality.

Climate solutions such as renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and approaches offer a range of unprecedented opportunities for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and industrialisation. With public policy support, women can have a growing share of opportunities in these dynamic sectors.

Varying amongst countries and regions, one noted a general insufficiency of gender-tailored policies concerning energy transitions emerge, thus emphasising the inclusion of women in climate response strategies as essential to address these gender disparities.

As the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), we have established a Gender and Just Transition Reference Group, and will be developing work programmes to ensure we are forging women’s empowerment and providing women and girls with a deliberate support programme into climate leadership, thus creating for them the procedural justice platforms required to make informed decisions about their future.

Our work will therefore be focusing on the need to design and implement policies addressing the specific needs and challenges faced by women concerning energy transition, access and energy poverty, employment, education, and decision-making. This includes allocating resources, promoting women-led initiatives, and their participation in energy governance structures.

Yuri Ramkissoon is a Climate Impact Research Analyst at the Presidential Climate Commission.
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