Same Old Eskom or Green New Deal? | South Africa's Renewable Energy Future Explained

As South Africa’s economic crisis worsens and unemployment rises, the state power utility, Eskom, is only hurting the economy even more with load shedding (power cuts). A Green New Deal that prioritises renewable energy could both generate massive employment - and solve load shedding for good. And it turns out the sustainability, climate change and environmental benefits are just the cherry on the cake!

IN THIS VIDEO:
00:00 Intro
01:09 SA’s current economic pain explained
02:32 How Eskom coped during lockdown
03:12 A Green New Deal for South Africa
04:36 Why should our economic recovery be GREEN?
05:54 Energy expert Jesse Burton on renewable energy
07:44 So who’s gonna pay for all of this?
08:15 Why SA’s renewable energy programme went from hero to zero
09:00 Some good news from Cyril Ramaphosa & Gwede Mantashe
09:30 Megan Davies explains the Just Energy Transition
11:17 Anja Berretta on what SA can learn from the rest of Africa
12:28 Conclusion

Politically Aweh contributor Aman Baboolal unpacks why 2020 might be the perfect time for South Africa to consider implementing a wide ranging Green New Deal, drawing inspiration from the plan put together by progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the United States, and reminding us of the historical similarities between the socio-economic conditions that spurred Franklin D Roosevelt to implement the original New Deal in 1930s USA, and those of 2020 South Africa.

To find out more, we spoke to local experts Jesse Burton, energy policy researcher at the University of Cape Town's Energy Systems Research Group, and Megan Davies, a scholar of the just energy transition in South Africa, based at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University. To get some perspective from renewable energy developments in the rest of Africa, we chatted to Anja Berretta, the head of the Energy Security and Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa programme at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

FURTHER READING & RESOURCES:

About the original New Deal:
https://youtu.be/6bMq9Ek6jnA

World Bank Report on SA's renewable energy programme:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/20039

Op-eds on economic recovery & energy:
How renewables can help SA’s economy recover from Covid: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2020-09-21-how-renewables-can-help-sas-economy-recover-from-covid/
Energy policy reform is central to SA’s economic recovery and growth:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-28-energy-policy-reform-is-central-to-sas-economic-recovery-and-growth/
The impacts of Covid-19 on the power sector in sub-Saharan Africa
https://www.kas.de/en/web/climate-energy-africa/single-title/-/content/the-impacts-of-covid-19-on-the-power-sector-in-sub-saharan-africa-1

Just Transition & environmentalism:
https://90by2030.org.za/just-energy-transition/
https://www.groundwork.org.za/
https://lifeaftercoal.org.za/
https://cer.org.za/ - The Centre For Environmental Rights

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#SouthAfrica
#GreenNewDeal

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Get in touch with the team at info@politicallyaweh.co.za

SPECIAL THANKS:
-Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for their support of this content:
https://www.kas.de/en/web/climate-energy-africa
-Daylin Paul for allowing us to use his photos. Visit the 'Broken Land' series here: https://www.daylinpaul.com/broken-land
-@WODE MAYA for allowing us to use his drone footage of solar panels in Ghana

Видео Same Old Eskom or Green New Deal? | South Africa's Renewable Energy Future Explained канала Politically Aweh