Just energy transition - a synergic solution for the joint implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda? Empirical evidence from Germany and South Africa

In striving to achieve the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, governments have the opportunity to implement their climate and sustainability goals more coherently. Such coherence requires the coordination of interdependent policies across different policy fields, sectors and actors. This paper explores how governments design and implement synergic solutions to concomitantly achieve both international agendas. With the empirical cases of Germany and South Africa, we investigate two independent approaches to the synergic solution of a just energy transition, whereby countries aim to phase out coal as a means to tackle climate change while also ensuring that the achievement of other Sustainable Development Goals is not hindered. To that end, we analyse relevant policies and institutional arrangements by applying a combined conceptual framework of energy justice and just transition in both countries. We find major challenges to overcoming environmental, economic and social burdens of the coal phase-out, especially in the Water-Energy-Food nexus, as well as in relation to jobs and inequality. Through the selection of Germany and South Africa, we illustrate how countries with different political, social and economic backgrounds strive to manage such a transition. Our findings suggest important considerations for the way just transitions are designed and how they play out in practice by taking into account environmental and social justice.