The Global South needs a just transition. What will it take?

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Last month, we learned that global heating is on track to reach up to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century – compared to the goal of 1.5 degrees under the Paris Agreement.

If we are to have any chance of preventing the climate crisis from getting significantly worse, we must phase out our leading source of greenhouse gas emissions: fossil fuels.

But world leaders didn’t even get that far at last year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP28). The ‘UAE Consensus,’ a non-binding agreement, simply committed countries to a “transition away” from fossil fuels instead of a full phaseout.

Some analysts pointed to the presence of thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists at the conference, which was hosted by the U.A.E. – a major oil and gas producer.

But the roots of the issue run deeper.

They reveal a global divide between some countries in the Global South, which argue that they need fossil fuels to drive development, and those in the Global North, as well as small island states, which pushed for a full phaseout, warning that continued burning of fossil fuels threatens all of humanity.

Many Global South countries believe they have the right to keep burning fossil fuels, given that they have only contributed a small fraction of historical emissions compared to the Global North. This is especially true when factoring in emissions caused by colonial rule.

But with the urgent need for humanity to decarbonize, this raises some critical questions: can the Global South really develop without relying on fossil fuels? And if so, what pathways can we take to achieve a just transition?

The great phaseout dilemma

Many Global South countries are still largely mired in poverty following centuries of colonial exploitation by the empires of the Global North – especially the U.S., the U.K. and other western European powers – which drained other nations of their natural resources and wealth.

These enduring impacts have left these countries with limited access to clean, renewable energy, pushing them toward fossil fuels instead. Not only are these resources abundant and efficient, but they’re also affordable and offer a quick source of revenue.

In Africa, it’s difficult to envision economic development without also increasing carbon emissions.

On a continent where 600 million people live without access to electricity, fossil fuels are the most readily available resource to power homes, while the fossil fuel industry promises a steady supply of jobs.

In other words, asking African countries to rely solely on renewables is essentially asking them to remain poor.

“Africans could be handicapped if global-level policies are designed to limit greenhouse gases, and the proposed timelines toward net zero do not take the continent’s unique circumstances into account,” said Hamira Kobusingye, a climate and health activist with the Rise Up Movement, on GLF Live.

It’s not that Africa is opposed to a greener world, Kobusingye points out, but rather that it’s a major challenge to deal with the climate and food crises at the same time.

When communities are focused on what to put on the table, renewable energies “tend to look like a luxury,” she explained.

India is another country that can’t see a future without fossil fuels – especially coal – because its economy and local communities rely heavily on them for energy and employment, with up to 4 million people working in the coal industry.

For many in the Global South, climate action is an unfair burden to solve a crisis they did little to create, and decarbonization is often perceived more as a sacrifice than as a solution.

“If you ask most countries, they would say: development comes first,” says Dr. Rahul Tongia, senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi. 

“Now you want to develop as cleanly as possible. But if we have a framing that says ‘no, just because of climate change, no fossil fuels allowed,’ then that’s not only unfair – it’s also very, very impractical.”

Despite its reliance on coal, India is still building renewable energy capacity at record pace to fulfill its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

But its progress on renewables is lagging behind, with its climate action rated “highly insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker.

Is the end of fossil fuels in sight?

While Global South countries are finding it difficult to commit to phasing out fossil fuels, the stakes are even higher for small island states.

If the climate crisis causes sea levels to continue to rise, these countries could disappear under the waves entirely.

One way to end the fossil fuel era is for countries to leapfrog it and adopt clean energy from the outset, but this comes with a caveat. 

The Earth has ample natural resources, like aluminum, cement and steel, to build enough solar panels and wind turbines to meet all of humanity’s needs. The challenge lies in ensuring that these materials are sustainably mined. 

Moreover, successful leapfrogging will require reforming environmental policies to prioritize clean energy, while also securing investments from the Global North to support its adoption in the Global South.

“We should be mobilizing finance to be able to implement a deep just transition,” says Zaki Mamdoo, a South African environmental activist and coordinator of the StopEACOP (Stop East African Crude Oil Pipeline) campaign. 

“To be able to transcend our crisis, we must be putting forward concrete and real demands for reparations, for non-conditional grants, and making sure that historical polluters, as well as today’s imperial powers, are held to account.”

While Mamdoo recognizes that fossil fuels cannot be phased out overnight, he strongly opposes new projects led by rich countries that further extract and exploit fossil fuel resources in their poorer counterparts.

Experts have suggested that a “logical first step” in transitioning to clean energy is to stop new projects from being built before attempting to shut down existing ones.

A greenwashing myth

For many climate activists, fossil fuel dependency is just another form of greenwashing pushed by the industry to keep humanity hooked on their product.

“We need to change this mindset that we still think we are codependent on something that is killing us,” says Paloma Costa, Brazilian advisor to the UN Secretary-General and consultant for the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA).

“It’s like a codependent, violent relationship that we are having with someone that is really, really toxic to us.”

Costa believes this is a mindset instilled by corporate elites in the Global North who have yet to face the consequences of the climate crisis firsthand.

“In the Global South, we see the impacts from our windows: we wake up, see the smog from our forests burning, and we know we need to change this,” she says.

“But in other regions, people are so isolated in their air conditioning that they sometimes miss what is happening in the world. That’s why we need to work on changing mindsets, changing education, changing how people relate and connect with this world.”

A ‘just’ middle ground

It’s no surprise that less developed countries are especially vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis. But even within the Global South, these impacts – and the growing carbon emissions that drive them – aren’t evenly distributed.

For instance, India and China now account for about 60 percent of total emissions across the Global South, while around 120 countries only contribute 22 percent.

This means we need to address these vast differences in emissions and vulnerability to climate impacts between Global South countries.

In the case of Africa, a just transition is about contextualizing the problem, explained Davina Ngei, communications manager at the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET), on GLF Live.

“Africa is a continent with very many countries, and even within those countries, the landscapes are drastically different,” she said. “We can’t say ‘solar for everyone’. It needs to be very specific to each area.”

Similarly, the climate crisis isn’t felt equally within countries. Many markers of social identity, such as gender, race and ethnicity, class, sexuality and disability, can also make us more vulnerable to its impacts – which is why an intersectional approach is so crucial.

Costa believes this is particularly important for development NGOs to keep in mind.

“There is a problem that international organizations try to impose ways of doing things. But who understands their own territories better than the people who are living there?”

A just transition then happens when diverse voices are involved in planning and implementing climate strategies – recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t enough.

How do we fund a just transition?

So, with these inequalities in mind, how can we make renewable energy affordable and accessible to everyone?

Last year at COP28, countries agreed to create a Loss and Damage Fund to help vulnerable countries mitigate the severe climate impacts they’re already facing, with initial pledges of over USD 700 million.

This fund aims to encourage rich countries to financially support countries in the Global South in adopting affordable, sustainable technologies as a form of payback for their historical emissions.

Now, at COP29, world leaders have returned to the negotiating table to flesh out how this fund will be implemented.

While Costa admits that Global South countries often have other pressing issues to deal with, she says it’s crucial to keep the clean energy transition on the agenda.

“Debates about fossil fuels become not the priority because the priority is to survive. But we need to understand that this is also a debate about priorities.”