Climate Justice

Africa must find pathways to provide a better life for its people, including access to healthy and sustainably produced food. Published before the start of the African Union’s Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit in Nairobi, our policy brief (edited by the Heinrich Böll offices in Abuja, Berlin, Capetown and Nairobi) provides recommendations on fossil fuel-based and ‘green’ fertilizer production and use in Africa.

Namibia is planning a series of million-dollar investments to become a major green hydrogen supplier to Europe and Japan as early as 2028. Both the European Union and the Japanese government have supported the venture, in the hopes of getting new imports to meet their climate change goals. In their new landing page, Oxpeckes brings together a series of articles exploring proposed projects, and what they look like from the ground.

As African countries embark on net zero transitions, it is critical that Global North actors align their investments to specific and localised understandings of ‘Just Transitions’

An investigation by Oxpeckers and Climate Home found coal-reliant communities in South Africa have scarce details on how funds for reskilling workers from its $8.5 billion deal will be implemented.

On 20 March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will present its Synthesis Report to its 6th Assessment Report. Our briefing highlights essential points of the underlying reports that will be crucial to creating a just and sustainable future in climate change.

A series of reflections on urban public spaces with support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Kavango communities filed an urgent interdict to appeal the extension of fracking licenses in an ecologically sensitive area – but were left with a hefty bill.

SA’s government is moving at speed to phase-out coal as the country’s leading energy source. But what does this mean for the communities who have for so long relied on this carbon for their livelihoods?

Green hydrogen is being touted as a solution to climate change that could also create jobs and economic prosperity in South Africa. Yet, it also poses risks for the realisation of a just transition.

This analysis outlines the main critical areas of the upcoming negotiations and key demands from civil society ahead of the COP27 Opening Plenary.

As South Africa celebrates heritage month in September the coastal community of Sicambeni on the East Coast of South Africa, together with social justice partners celebrated a victory for indigenous people. On 1st September 2022 the Makhanda High Court ruled that Shell’s exploration right to conduct seismic surveys on the Wild Coast of South Africa was granted unlawfully and therefore set it aside. Community and environmental activist Ntsindiso Nongcavu reflects on what the ruling means for those who lives are spiritually and economically connected to the oceans.

Emilia Reyes is an international advocate for women's rights and an expert on gender-responsive public policies and budgets and sustainable development, including comprehensive disaster risk management and climate change. She highlights the necessity of degrowth and the problems of our global neoliberal system.

Tarcila Rivera Zea from the Quechua-Chanka Nation of Peru has been an important indigenous activist and recognized defender of the rights of indigenous girls, women, youth and peoples for more than 40 years. She provides wisdom on how to educate young people to value Mother Earth.

Keya Chatterjee is the Executive Director of US Climate Action Network (USCAN) and author of the book The Zero Footprint Baby: How to Save the Planet While Raising a Healthy Baby. She lays out how to defend democracy and fight the climate crisis.

Hilda Flavia Nakabuye is a climate, gender and environmental rights activist, public speaker, writer and Founder of Fridays For Future - Uganda. She explains how climate justice necessarily means social justice.

Anna Cavazzini has been a member a Member of the European Parliament for The Greens/EFA since 2019. She shares her thoughts on what needs to be done to secure a circular economy and a just transition.

Momentum gained on finance for Loss and Damage at COP26, if not derailed, can lead to more success at COP27 in Egypt.

COP26 in Glasgow started with a plethora of declarations. But in the end it failed to deliver on the real and immediate action needed to avoid climate catastrophe, and to address the demand for justice and equity for those most impacted by climate harms.

Progress on core climate finance issues at COP26 proved to be key to break deadlocks and to reach often inadequate compromises in the Glasgow Climate Pact.

Civil society organisations in South Africa are proposing a post-WW2-style economic recovery programme to steer energy transformation for the state utility that echoes Roosevelt’s New Deal in the USA. But the country has been thrown into an even deeper energy crisis, following an explosion at one of the country’s newly-minted power stations. Could this make the ‘Green New Eskom’ idea even more relevant?