Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership was announced last year and aims to use $20 billion over the next three to five years to speed up the nation’s transition from coal to renewable energy. This month, a plan for how to do that was submitted.
An agreement between South Africa, European countries and the U.S. includes $8.5 billion in loans and grants to speed up South Africa’s energy transition to renewables. This deal is a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) and is designed to catalyze global finance for emerging economies looking to shift energy reliance away from fossil fuels in a way that doesn’t leave people and communities behind. Similar deals have taken place in Indonesia ($20 billion), Vietnam ($15.5 billion), and Senegal ($2.75 billion).
It took the help of a linguist for Indian researcher Sabir Ahamed to translate the term "just transition" into Bengali for his new study on the impact of coal mine closures on local people, as climate change communication often excludes people who don't speak English. Ahamed settled on the somewhat poetic "kalo theke aalo," which literally means "from darkness to hope."
The Swaniti Initiative and Just Transition Fund are proud to present the India-U.S. Just Energy Transition Dialogue, a three-part series of webinars exploring how resource-dependent regions can achieve a just transition. The first session will discuss how local governments and community leaders can effectively utilize central and state government funds in both the U.S. and India, where federal policies have enabled the flow of financial resources to local communities.
South Africa has identified more than 60 billion rand ($3.5 billion) of investments needed to help communities in the coal-mining Mpumalanga province as the industry gradually winds down, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said as she announced an additional $45 million in grant support.
