Just Energy Transition

Strengthening Evidence-Informed Decision-Making in South Africa’s Just Energy Transition: Building a Living Evidence Base
Climate change is already having severe impacts in South Africa, with floods, heatwaves, and droughts disproportionately affecting the country’s most vulnerable communities and exacerbating the entrenched challenges of poverty, inequality, and unemployment. As one of the most unequal countries in the world, South Africa’s transition to a low-carbon economy must extend beyond a shift to cleaner energy sources; it must also address systemic inequalities. Evidence-Informed Decision-Making (EIDM) is therefore essential to ensuring that the transition is implemented in a fair, just, and equitable manner. Previous work done by the Pan-African Collective for Evidence (PACE) aimed to assess how evidence is used in Just Energy Transition policymaking and implementation in South Africa. One of the key gaps identified through this work is the extent to which policymakers in the space have limited access to relevant and usable evidence. In response, PACE, in partnership with the Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit in the Presidency of South Africa, have developed a living evidence base on the Just Energy Transition in South Africa. The living evidence base was co-developed with stakeholders to ensure that it remains relevant and responsive to user needs. The integration of an AI chatbot functionality within the interactive evidence map enables decision-makers, policymakers, and practitioners to easily navigate the evidence and obtain answers to their questions.

Madonsela, A.,Tshabalala, N., Dean, L., Jacobs, C., Moilwa, T., & Nxumalo, T. Living evidence Map on the Just Energy Transition in South Africa. Pan-African Collective for Evidence: Johannesburg.

Pan-African Collective for Evidence and Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit

A POLICY STUDY ON SRI LANKA’S ENERGY TRANSITION, GEOPOLITICS, AND ENERGY FUTURE
Verangika Upananda, Factum, Sri Lanka.
This policy study evaluates Sri Lanka’s energy transition within South Asia’s evolving geopolitical landscape. Anchored by climate commitments, including a 70% renewable electricity target by 2030, a 20.09% emission reduction under NDC 3.0 by 2035, and net-zero emissions by 2050, the study examines the gap between ambitious policy goals and actual implementation. Using a qualitative methodology combining secondary policy analysis with in-depth interviews across policy, regulatory, operational, academic, and private-sector entities, the report assesses structural bottlenecks across technological, institutional, and financial dimensions. Technologically, the shift from generation expansion to grid integration has revealed critical bottlenecks, including grid absorptive limits, delayed battery storage deployment, and reliance on thermal baseload thinking. Institutionally, despite major structural milestones such as the restructuring of the Ceylon Electricity Board into successor entities in March 2026, progress remains hindered by overlapping agency mandates, procurement delays, and the absence of a binding fossil fuel phase-out framework. Financially, post-2022 macroeconomic constraints, foreign exchange risks, unstable tariff structures, and off-taker solvency issues impair project bankability, shifting the transition burden onto private and external capital. Geopolitically, Sri Lanka’s transition is shaped by strategic competition between India and China, multilateral lending conditionalities, and regional grid interconnection plans such as the proposed India-Sri Lanka HVDC link. To resolve these challenges, the report recommends developing a formal Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Framework, updating the 2019 National Energy Policy, creating a National Energy Storage Roadmap, building an AI-enabled grid platform, establishing a Least-System-Cost-First investment policy, and creating a National Renewable Energy Land Bank.