South Africa’s move away from coal is usually told through one province and one workforce. That story matters. Mpumalanga’s miners and the communities built around coal mines face real losses as coal-fired power is phased out, and they deserve credible alternatives, social protection and a genuine say in what happens next. But the just transition is not a Mpumalanga problem alone. Everyone who depends on the country’s economy, its water, its food and its energy has a stake, and national policy already says so.
When the Just Transition Framework was handed over in 2022, the presidency explicitly recognised that the transition reaches into mining, automotive manufacturing, tourism and agriculture. The task now is to give that recognition practical meaning across all nine provinces, because changing technologies, production requirements and climate risks touch small businesses and livelihoods everywhere. A proposed JUST SA Community of Practice conference, scheduled for the first half of 2027, is designed to do exactly that, bringing all nine provinces into a shared conversation about risks, green industrialisation, decent work and implementation. Its organising premise is simple: one national transition, nine provincial realities.
The evidence comes from the ground. Over the past two years, Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) held provincial just transition workshops in every province, with vulnerability assessments conducted alongside practitioners and insights captured in a podcast series. What emerged is a picture of differentiated pressure. In the Eastern Cape, practitioners raised the shift from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles, vulnerable agricultural livelihoods and water insecurity. KwaZulu-Natal faces flooding, ports, logistics, petrochemicals and manufacturing. Gauteng needs major investment to decarbonise factories, steel, chemicals, logistics and other energy-intensive activities.
The picture varies province by province. The Free State confronts questions about agriculture, drought and mining-linked towns. Limpopo’s priorities include mining, mineral processing, agriculture and rural livelihoods, while North West must weigh the futures of mining communities against opportunities in rehabilitation and new mineral value chains. The Northern Cape holds renewable energy potential alongside drought and spatial inequality. The Western Cape must manage agriculture, tourism, water pressures, wildfires and coastal risks. Mpumalanga’s coal-dependent communities remain central, with particular attention to worker displacement, municipal revenue and diversification. None of these challenges can be answered from a national template alone; they require locally grounded responses.
A further distinction matters for citizens trying to understand what the transition promises them. The risks created by economic restructuring and those created by climate change itself are not the same. A worker displaced by industrial change needs a pathway to income and employment. A farming community exposed to drought needs resilience, water security and support for its livelihoods. Some communities face both at once, and a credible just transition must be able to respond to that complexity rather than pretend it is uniform.
South Africa has also looked outward for answers it can actually use. In October 2026, a JUST SA International Study Tour, organised by TIPS through the Just Transition to a Decarbonised Economy for South Africa project, took 21 South African participants to India. The delegation included national departments, provincial and municipal government, the Presidential Climate Commission, research institutions and organisations supporting the green economy. The choice of India reflected a search for solutions a developing economy could afford and adapt, covering community enterprises, decentralised energy, resource efficiency and productive infrastructure. The planned programme included waste recycling, alternative building materials, water security and women-led renewable energy enterprises, connecting cleaner technologies to everyday questions of ownership, income and local development. Affordability, the organisers caution, must still be tested project by project: equipment costs, maintenance, skills, financing and demand will decide whether an approach developed elsewhere can work here. Further background on this argument appears at https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/2026-10-22-let-s-make-the-circle-bigger-a-just-transition-for-all-of-south-africa/.
The deeper lesson is about connection. Provincial borders organise government responsibilities, but electricity systems and economic value chains bind the country together. Renewable energy development zones and power corridors were conceived precisely to link generation opportunities with strategic grid expansion, giving practical reason to plan beyond provincial interests. The JUST SA Community of Practice aims to strengthen partnerships across renewable energy equipment, grid infrastructure, electric vehicles, agriculture, water technologies and the circular economy. A province with strong renewable resources could work with another that has manufacturing capacity. Municipalities could collaborate on waste markets or technical expertise. Training institutions could prepare workers for opportunities across connected value chains.
Such cooperation needs clear responsibilities, funding and accountability, and political leaders willing to see that a neighbouring province’s progress strengthens their own. Party competition will remain part of democratic life, but workers should not have to wait for political alignment before their futures receive serious attention. If the transition succeeds, it could deliver better services, stronger local enterprises, wider ownership and more equal access to economic opportunity, provided workers and communities participate in decisions about what gets built, who benefits and how public resources are used. We share one planet, and we share one South Africa. Our transition planning should reflect both. Elize Hattingh is an economist and researcher on the JUST SA project, commissioned by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).