The Climate Change and Inequality project publishes timely reflections and expert commentary on the unequal impacts of climate change and the politics of low-carbon transitions. Drawing on research across the Global South, these short pieces connect academic insight to public debate, highlighting how climate action can either deepen or reduce social and economic inequalities.
Francis, D., Taylor, J., & Valodia, I. (2025). South Africa's Economic Development and the Climate Crisis: Lessons in Durable Forms of Polycrisis. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 118(1), 103-125.
Lehmann-Grube, K., Mabasa, K., & Taylor, J. (2026). Understanding social ownership in context: Towards a just transition in South Africa. New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, 101(1)
Taylor, J., Cassim, A., Crompton, R., & Valodia, I. (2026). How can energy policy support a just transition for countries in the global South? Insights from South Africa's renewables procurement. Energy Policy, 217, 115443.
21 January 2025 – Naila Kabeer, Chung Ah Baek and Deepta Chopra | Women are seen as ‘saviours’ or ‘victims’ in climate change debates: why this is a problem
29 January 2025 - Caren Grown | Climate finance and care services: why public investment is necessary
26 February 2025 – David King and Imraan Valodia | Climate talks: global south must seize the moment and take the lead
Perspectives on the Care-Climate Nexus | Contributions by Diana Vela Almeida, Chung Ah-Baek, Radhika Balakrishnan, Deepta Chopra, Sarah Cook, Diane Elson, Maria Floro, Chiara Grazini, Caren Grown, Giulio Guarini, Naila Kabeer, Shawn Marshall, Ito Peng, Sonia Phalatse, Luiza Nassif Pires, Julia Taylor and Imraan Valodia
12 December 2024 – Seema Arora-Jonsson | Climate projects take ‘invisible’ care work for granted: why this needs to change
15 November 2024 - Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor, Katrina Lehmann-Grube | Developing nations are least responsible for climate change but cop it worst
15 November 2024 - Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor and Katrina Lehmann-Grube | Will the COP29 climate talks tackle injustice?
14 November 2024 – Julia Taylor, Imraan Valodia, Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Sarah Cook, Somali Cerise | Climate change: women’s role in the economy is key to a just transition
13 November 2024 - Diane Elson | Economic policies encourage the careless use of people and the planet
12 November 2024 - Diana Vela-Almeida | The just energy transition ignores labour outside the formal economy. So is it just?
10 November 2024 - Chiara Grazini and Giulio Guarini | Climate change is hitting women the hardest. What to do about it – economists
29 October 2024 - Maria S. Floro | Climate change is making it harder for people to get the care they need
28 October 2024 - Radhika Balakrishnan | GDP - an outdated way of measuring the economy
11 October 2024 - Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor and Sonia Phalatse | Climate change: care for humans, other species and the natural environment key to a just transition
19 September 2024 - Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor and Sonia Phalatse | (In)justice in the year of climate finance – at COP29 and G20 summit
17 July 2024 - Imraan Valodia | South Africa has a joblessness crisis: fixing it will take fresh thinking to find a game-changer
4 July 2024 - Imraan Valodia | South Africa’s political monopoly has been broken: could it help the economy?
21 May 2024 - Sonia Phalatse, Yashila Govender, Imraan Valodia, Katrina Lehman-Grube and Julia Taylor | Party manifestos lack a clear, coherent and inspiring roadmap for a just transition
8 April 2024 - Buntu Siwisa | Securitising responses to inequality conflict: Beware the Zimbabwe way
28 March 2024 - Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor and Sonia Phalatse | What happened to the Just Energy Transition grant funding?
11 March 2024 - Imraan Valodia | OBITUARY: The ‘Sociology Madala’ who shaped the way we think about the world
17 December 2023 - Yashila Govender, Bathandwa Mtebele, Julia Taylor and Imraan Valodia | More COP input needed from Global South universities to draw attention to region’s needs
23 November 2023 - Aalia Cassim, Imraan Valodia, Julia Taylor, Rod Crompton | Insights from South Africa's 12-year-old renewable energy programme
14 September 2023 - Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Julia Taylor, Imraan Valodia, Rod Crompton, Jason Huang and Ian Jandrell | Grid capacity a significant obstacle to renewables transition and fixing load shedding
28 May 2023 - Imraan Valodia and Julia Taylor | Column: Ensuring a just energy transition is complex
SCIS Working Paper | Number 77 | Power, Inequality and the Limits of Climate Reform: Rethinking South Africa’s Just Transition | January 2026
Author: Crispian Olver
This paper asks why an apparent consensus on a just transition has not (at least yet) consolidated into a permanent settlement and what this reveals about the relationship between institutions, power and equity (both procedural and distributional). Drawing on Political Settlements Theory (PST), the analysis argues that for climate and just-transition reforms to endure, the distribution of costs and benefits must broadly align with prevailing configurations of power.
The political economy of social ownership in South Africa: Opportunities to address inequality in transition | December 2025
Authors: Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Khwezi Mabasa, Julia Taylor
South Africa has high levels of persistent, structural inequality. Social ownership has reemerged in recent years as an opportunity to address inequality, particularly in the context of the just transition. The just transition refers to the manner in which the transition to a low-carbon economy is achieved. Social ownership is proposed as a means to reduce the concentration of wealth, improve access to resources and labour opportunities for a more equitable society.
Understanding the future labour market: a microsimulation and distributive analysis | December 2025
Authors: Rogan, M., Oyenubi, A., Francis, D. and Nel, V
This report examines how South Africa’s energy transition toward a low-carbon economy could reshape the labour market and inequality dynamics. Using an integrated macro–micro simulation approach, it links employment projections from the SATIM computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to household-level data through a microsimulation model.
Strengthening skills for a Just Transition: recommendations to support collaboration | November 2025
Authors: Presidential Climate Commission (PCC)
South Africa’s commitment to a Just Transition entails an inclusive and equitable shift to a low-carbon economy that addresses both high carbon emissions and persistent inequality. Central to this is the need to facilitate economic diversification, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.
Towards a comprehensive social protection system for a Just Transition in South Africa | October 2025
Authors: Castel-Branco, Ruth Amra, Rashaad Gandhi, Rahul Lehmann-Grube, Katrina Taylor, Julia
Despite South Africa’s carbon-intensive economy, research suggests that decarbonisation could result in net employment gains, provided the economy continues to grow (IASS, IET and CSIR, 2022; Merven et al., 2021; Rogan et al., forthcoming). While these projections are encouraging, the early distributional effects of emission reductions are likely to be unequal, with Black African workers, women and youth disproportionately at risk of job displacement during the initial years of the transition (Rogan et al., forthcoming).
SCIS Working Paper | Number 70 | The Climate-Care Nexus – A Conceptual Framework | October 2024
Authors: Sonia Phalatse, Julia Taylor and Imraan Valodia
As is widely acknowledged and evidenced, climate change threatens food security and sovereignty; water availability, accessibility, and quality; health; and livelihoods. This paper expands on the conceptual linkages of a care-climate nexus, with the aim of supporting climate policy.
SCIS Working Paper | Number 68 | Towards a gender just transition: Principles and perspectives from the global South | June 2024
Authors: Somali Cerise, Sarah Cook, Katrina Lehmann-Grube, Julia Taylor, and Imraan Valodia
This paper asks what a gender just transition could and should look like, particularly in the global South. Based on an extensive review of conceptual and empirical literatures from a range of disciplinary perspectives, we examine how different approaches address – or ignore – gender dimensions of (in)justice in thinking about low-carbon transitions. We go on to offer a more expansive view of justice informed by perspectives drawn from feminist theory and combine this with the pillars of distributive, procedural, recognitive and restorative justice.
SCIS Working Paper | Number 47 | Renewable energy, the just transition and inequality: insights from South Africa's renewables procurement | May 2023
Authors: Aalia Cassim, Julia Taylor, Roderick Crompton, and Imraan Valodia
This paper discusses the de-risking approach and the investment-centred approach to an energy transition, and using the case study of South Africa, argues for the necessity of an investment-centred approach to achieve a transition which supports local development and energy security. In analysing the example of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REI4P), the authors highlight important learnings for the energy transition, which provide a useful window into the wider carbon transition.