The 'Just Transition' and health in South Africa

The article provides a review of South Africa’s climate change response and the role the healthcare sector can play in reducing global carbon emissions and helping societies to adapt and become more ‘climate resilient’. It ends by providing recommendations for public health within the just transition movement in South Africa, focusing on the heavily polluted Highveld Priority Area in Mpumalanga, and further provide the implications of these recommendations for the healthcare sector.

Key Findings/Recommendations: Active and accountable leadership is needed in South Africa to place health firmly on the agenda of the ‘just transition’, to redress the injustices of coal-related pollution and climate change impacts on already vulnerable communities, and to develop the capacity of health workers and healthcare institutions towards a low-carbon and climate-resilient healthcare system.

Read online: https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/ejc-healthr-v2022-n1-a10