Quarterly Newsflash: Landmark Cancel Coal Court Case win, a Solidarity Picnic, and celebrating youth-led grassroots projects across the continent
A 2024 fourth-quarter newsflash from the ACA team
This year has been a monumental one in the five-year history of the African Climate Alliance. If we could sum up the year in one word it would be: movement-building.
We’ve always said that our Ambassadors will be the ones to carry the hypothetical ACA flag in countries across the continent as we envision a decentralised, but united Afrocentric movement.
It has been a huge year for our past and present Ambassadors with 5 Ambassador-led March For System Change actions, 7 graduated ambassador projects, and 1 new climate organisation founded in Malawi by one of our past Ambassadors. We supported them with mentorship and resources, but the rest was left up to the Ambassadors and they made us proud.
While our work focuses on equipping young people across the continent with the skills and confidence to become climate changemakers in their own communities, a big part of this work requires us to reframe the climate crisis as a crisis of human rights.
Another key marker of this year is the way we have intentionally broken through siloed movement-building walls and committed ourselves to collaborating with over 15 partner organisations and multiple coalition spaces in South Africa and beyond. These partnerships show the connections between the climate crisis and our struggles for gender equity, land and housing justice, water justice, energy justice, public health, food justice, and ending oppressive regimes.
As we wind down toward our annual organisational break before diving into 2025, here’s a brief look at what we have been up to in October, November, and December:
Making history with a landmark victory in the Cancel Coal Court case
Image: Julia Evans via Daily Maverick
We took the government to court to fight for our futures – and we won! This victorious Cancel Coal court case moment marks the first time in South African history that youth have led a climate change court case against the government.
Three years ago, the Cancel Coal court case was opened against the South African government to fight for our futures. The applicants included African Climate Alliance, groundWork, and the Vukani Environmental Movement, represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights.
After making front page news on the Mail & Guardian during the hearing days (9 and 10 October 2024) and almost two months of anticipation, on 4 December, we got the news that we won.
In a landmark ruling, the High Court of South Africa has overturned the government’s plans to add 1,500 MW of new coal-fired power to the national grid. The court found that the government failed to adequately consider the impact of coal on children’s rights, particularly their right to a healthy environment, saying they are “unlawful and invalid”.
It’s not only young people that will benefit from an end to new coal. This is a victory for all South Africans as it writes into law the importance of considering environmental and health impacts in government decision-making.
Learn more about the judgement here.
Challenged the narrative that being anti-new coal means being anti-development with our ‘What About The Jobs?!’ video campaign
During our campaigning for the Cancel Coal court case, a lot of our work focussed on reframing the narrative so that people understood that our calls to end new coal are not anti-development and are inherently human-centred. One of the biggest concerns is whether ending new coal will affect current and future jobs.
So, we created a video campaign that showed how a shift away from new coal to a more sustainable, diversified economy can create millions of new “climate jobs” — decent, people-driven jobs that reduce the causes and impacts of climate change. Watch the full video on our YouTube channel.
Hosting the ‘Our Future Now’ Energy Imbizo
In another effort to humanise our energy systems in South Africa, we hosted an Energy Imbizo ahead of the Cancel Coal hearing dates. On 8 October 2024, in collaboration with Vukani Environmental Movement, we hosted an open space style energy Imbizo to bring together youth, frontline communities, civil society organisations, and other relevant stakeholders focusing on energy and climate justice.
We gathered at Constitutional Hill in Braamfontein Johannesburg. 33 people joined for a day of important discussions, learning, and community-building. With an aim to discuss and explore various aspects of energy production, distribution, and consumption, this open space style event helped develop a collective understanding of what it means to centre justice in the energy transition South Africa is embarking on and the role the climate crisis will play in worsening the already existing socio-political injustices.
Celebrating the impact of our graduated ambassadors
The journey of an ACA Ambassador is not over after our one-year Ambassador Programme. After graduating from the programme, we aim to continue our support for each Ambassador’s change-making initiatives with our Opportunity Fund. This Fund is intended to support the sustainability and ongoing efforts of ACA Ambassadors.
Past Ambassadors are encouraged to submit project proposals for climate justice projects they’d like to lead in their communities, to receive a micro-grant and mentorship to help bring their ideas to life.
In the past year, we have funded 7 projects in Zambia, Malawi, and South Africa. Across the 7 projects, over 250 people were reached and engaged in climate justice awareness, education, and action. Learn more about each project here.
Drawing intersectional connections at the Solidarity Picnic
As a continuation of Cape Town Climate Week, 55 people gathered to share food, stories, spoken word, and ideas for intersectional justice across the world. Through storytelling, spoken word, and a shared commitment to ending all oppressive systems, we showed how our struggle for climate justice in Cape Town is connected to all those battling against oppressive regimes across the continent and the world.
We drew connections between genocide, green colonialism, and the climate crisis from Palestine to Sudan and Congo.
Hosting the ACA Writing Circle and publishing our third op-ed
We officially published our second op-ed crafted by the ACA Writing Circle. This one came after three sessions of brainstorming, workshopping, and writing a climate finance op-ed during COP29. The final article focussed on how climate finance affects our everyday lives and why we need a rights-based approach to addressing global inequities within the climate justice movement.
Exploring what it means to hold the Global North to account in the climate justice movement
The extractive legacies of the Global North have hugely contributed to the climate crisis and impacted the Global South. So, our October online educational workshop reflected on the structural systems and legacies that have worsened the climate crisis and how the responsibilities must be shared between “developed” and “developing” countries.
This was followed by an ACA Dialogue panel discussion with Sayed Shoaib Sadaat and Erica Njuguna who are both dedicated climate justice activists. The aim was to understand how our shared histories can enable us to build solidarity and forge pathways for systems change through accountability-driven action.
Movement Building at COP29
While this global conference has many shortcomings – especially when it comes to accessibility for grassroots activists – we see it as an important moment for movement building beyond high-level negotiations.
This year, two of our team members – Lisakhanya Mathiso and Sibusiso Mazomba – represented us at COP29 in global decision-making spaces alongside climate organizers from across the world as they connected, made their voices heard, and planned for a united, global climate justice movement.
Unpacking the power of climate finance as a catalyst for change
Climate finance, together with climate and social justice movements and solutions can lay the beginnings of a just future. In the wake of COP29 – also known as “the finance COP” – our final online educational workshops for the year focussed on deconstructing climate finance and reflecting on what it means for the climate justice movement.
This was followed by an ACA Dialogue panel discussion with Courtney Morgan, Lisakhanya Mathiso, and Sibusiso Mazomba – three South African climate activists who attended COP29 and shared their reflections on the financial outcomes of COP29 with us.
Making sure that young people are represented in policy-making spaces
Central to our work is making sure that youth voices are represented in decision-making spaces. This is why it was essential for us to have representation at the Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2023) stakeholder engagement session.
It provided an opportunity to discuss critical energy planning issues and gather diverse perspectives on South Africa's energy future. The session covered a wide range of topics, including public participation, energy mix debates, climate commitments, and grid infrastructure challenges. While valuable insights were shared, significant concerns were raised regarding the inclusivity of the process, particularly the lack of consideration for youth participation.
Calling on the International Court of Justice to acknowledge the impact of the climate crisis on youth in South Africa
The climate crisis is already a lived reality for many young people in South Africa. In December, in a powerful call to action, children and youth across South Africa urged the government to advocate for their climate rights at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). As the ICJ prepared to issue an advisory opinion on states’ climate change obligations under international law, young South Africans demanded that their voices be heard and their rights protected.
When the South African government presented its position at the ICJ, there were no plans to include the perspectives of children and youth, who are among the most affected by climate change. This omission has prompted a coalition of child and youth groups, including Black Girls Rising, African Climate Alliance, Save the Children SA Child Human Rights Defenders, Web Rangers, and the Presidential Climate Commission Youth Leaders Caucus, to speak out.
We demanded that young people’s lived experiences be included in the hearing, the acknowledgment of the climate crisis as an African child crisis, and the potential impact of the ICJ’s decision on future generations.
Team-building, reimagining, and re-strategising
The end-of-year period is always one of reflection and strategizing. We have spent many hours together over the past three months debriefing on the year, sharing ideas, returning to our theory of change, and putting measures in place to make sure that 2025 is a year of deepening our impact and expanding our reach across the continent.
We can’t wait to see what the new year holds, but for now, it’s time to rest. As we always say, rest is radical and an essential part of movement building. We’ll see you in 2025!
