Climate Justice or Climate Apartheid? The justice trade-offs of private solar investments for South Africa's just transition

Abstract

Climate scholarship and policy increasingly centre justice, acknowledging the uneven impacts of climate change, with global south countries and marginalised communities most vulnerable. Recently, ‘climate apartheid’ discourse has recognised that mitigation/adaptation strategies also (re)produce injustice. This highlights how the ‘climate privileged’ protect themselves from climate change impacts via strategies and technologies that exclude and further marginalise the ‘climate precarious’. We critically explore the value of climate apartheid discourse in South Africa, where global investment towards a just energy transition has contributed to alleviating the country’s energy crisis. South Africa’s renewable energy shift has been rapid, unprecedented, under-regulated, and highly uneven, dividing society between those with, and without, access to reliable energy. South Africa is also relevant for exploring climate apartheid as the ‘origin’ context, where reappropriating apartheid beyond its historical context is complex. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and survey responses, we examine the multifaceted motivations for, and impacts of, private household investments in renewable energy in urban South Africa. Wealthy households have shielded themselves from loadshedding (scheduled power cuts) through solar power investments, benefiting from tax incentives inaccessible to poorer households who remain dependent on an unreliable and unaffordable grid. While climate apartheid discourse highlights the gravity of South Africa’s energy divide, it risks vilifying individually rational actions and overlooks their contribution to energy transitions. We propose ‘justice trade-offs’ in recognition that climate action can drive environmental justice and social injustice, particularly at the household-scale where actions by the climate privileged may not directly and/or intentionally marginalise the climate precarious.