Land and the Just Transition: A Guide for Local Government

A PARI-IIED-SALGA-ALIGN Project What is it The Guide diversifies the narrative and framing of the climate response beyond renewable energy to include the strategic importance of land and the local government in shaping the global climate response. Why is it important It is important because land is the base resource on which the climate response is negotiated. The renewable energy responses, adaptation and mitigation strategies are all hosted on land. Despite its importance and centrality to the climate response, land has remained an invisible topic in the debates. Similarly, local government which is the government institution that confronts the reality of climate crisis on the ground is also marginalised from discussions and deliberations around the just transition. It is important to foreground the importance of land in the climate response and framing of the just transition in order to ensure that any responses do not increase vulnerability of already marginalised populations, and in South Africa specifically, that the ongoing processes to redistribute land are maintained. The Guide foregrounds the importance of local government in climate response and provides guidance on how the current positioning of local government can be renegotiated to enable the institution to support just transition initiatives. This work set out to explore how the just transition is being understood and implemented at the local government level in South Africa, what bottlenecks exist for the implementation of transition linked projects exist and how municipalities are responding to increasing transition-linked land pressures. With the aim of providing practical guidance to those grappling with the emerging challenges, work was undertaken through adopting an action research approach, working with stakeholders to both identify gaps and collectively seek solutions to articulated challenges. What does it cover Land and the Just Tra