Just Access: The Real Transition
Just Access: The Real Transition is a documentary-style podcast from PARI (Public Affairs Research Institute) exploring South Africa’s Just Transition through one simple test: access. Access to electricity, water, land, and affordable services — but also access to decision-making, opportunity, and the real benefits of a changing economy.
Just Access: The Real Transition
Just Access: The Real Transition - Episode 10: The Politics of Access
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Just Access: The Real Transition is a 10-part podcast series from PARI (the Public Affairs Research Institute) exploring what a truly just transition means for South Africa, not only in energy policy, but in access to land, water, power, decision-making and economic opportunity.
In this final episode, the series steps back to reflect on the deeper questions that have emerged throughout its conversations.
Across the season, researchers, activists and communities have challenged the narrow idea that the Just Transition is only about moving away from coal while protecting jobs in the fossil fuel economy. Instead, the series has argued that South Africa’s transition begins from a society already shaped by unequal access to electricity, water, land, infrastructure and political power.
Drawing together key moments from across the series, Episode 10 revisits some of its central themes, affordability, developmental access, land justice, participation, state capacity, and the enduring influence of South Africa’s minerals-energy complex.
Economist Dr Tracy Ledger reflects on why justice must shape not only the “journey” of transition, but also the “destination”, a future energy system that is more equitable in everyday life. Dr Gaynor Paradza explores how renewable energy development places new pressure on land already marked by historical dispossession, while Dr Thokozani Chilenga-Butao examines the institutional tensions shaping the state’s response to transition.
The episode also returns to one of the strongest themes to emerge throughout the project, that participation is not simply about consultation, but whether people’s realities are genuinely reflected in policy and planning.
At the heart of the finale is a simple but urgent argument, the transition cannot be understood only as a technical shift in energy production. It is also a question of governance, dignity, ownership and access, and of whether South Africa can use this moment to confront inequalities that long predate decarbonisation itself.
The episode closes the series by asking not only how energy will change, but who the future system will ultimately work for.