Introduction

Comrades, friends, delegates, and leaders of the working class, I bring you revolutionary greetings from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the workers of South Africa.

It is an honour to open the 2025 Global South Exchange on Just Transition, promoting Labour Led Climate Action: Advancing a Just Transition for the Global South.

We meet in Ekurhuleni, the industrial heart of South Africa at a time when the world stands at a crossroads. The fight for climate justice has become the fight for the soul of our economies, our communities, and our planet.

The Climate Emergency and the Global South Reality

Comrades, the Global South is not facing a future threat, we are already living through the devastating consequences of climate change. From the coastal erosion in Mozambique and Senegal, to droughts in Namibia and Kenya, to floods in KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape, the lives and livelihoods of millions of workers are under siege.

Entire communities have been displaced, informal settlements washed away, and small-scale farmers left destitute. Our ports, roads, and water systems which are the heart of our economies are strained beyond capacity.

Yet, it is the working class, specifically women and youth in the Global South, who suffer most, even though we contribute least to global emissions.

The same economic systems that looted our minerals, our land, and our labour now seek to loot our energy and gain further profit through “green investments”. While they wish to benefit from our resources – our energy and our labour – we are expected to bear the costs.

But we say, clearly and firmly, that the capitalism cannot use the concept of the “Just Transition” to advance a new form of green colonialism. It must not be allowed to trap us into higher levels of debt and unsustainable dependence. Instead, we must contest this space and advance a Transition – that will indeed be Just. Our struggle for a Just Transition must ensure that we restructure economies and power relations to ensure that they put people before profit, and justice before exploitation.

The Global South Exchange, 2024 to 2025

When we gathered at the 2024 Global South Exchange, we made history. We contributed to building a united front of workers, unions, and allies from across Africa, Latin America, and Asia and we spoke in unison with one voice. We declared that climate justice is inseparable from economic justice. We affirmed that a Just Transition must be worker led, socially inclusive, and grounded in solidarity. And comrades, seen tangible progress:

1. The 2024 GSE Declaration was adopted, calling for public ownership of energy, job guarantees, and social protection as pillars of a just transition.
2. Our advocacy influenced COP29 outcomes, ensuring that worker participation and social dialogue were integrated into the Just Transition Work Programme.
3. COSATU and its allies shaped national debates, particularly on South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), to push for transparency, community benefit, and climate finance that is developmental in nature.
4. We began to redefine climate finance, not as charity, but as a matter of historical and social justice.

While we still have a hard and long struggle ahead of us to achieve our goals, we remain resolute. We are confident that when the Global South organises collectively, we can shift the balance of power.

Deepening the Transition

In 2025, our task is to turn those declarations into implementation. Across the world, powerful actors are moving fast to claim the “green economy.” But without the leadership of labour and communities, this transition will only reproduce old inequalities in new colours. That is why this Exchange must deepen our agenda. We must:

• Protect existing jobs and create new, decent, unionised jobs in renewables, transport, water, the care economy and sustainable manufacturing.
• Advance energy democracy for workers and communities – we must have a say in how energy is produced, priced, and distributed.
• Demand fair and unconditional climate finance, with grants not loans, reparations not debts.
• Embed social protection so that every worker impacted by transition has income support, retraining, and access to services.
• Advance social protection so that communities impacted by transition have income support and there is investment in local economic development.
• Promote gender and youth justice – women workers and young people must be central to the green economy – they must not be left behind.

These are not just demands they are commitments we will carry forward to COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November 2025.

South Africa’s Experience: Lessons from the JETP

Here at home, our experience with the Just Energy Transition Partnership, has been instructive. Yes, it has opened doors for financing renewable projects.  However it has also exposed the risks of debt driven, top-down approaches that ignore the realities of workers and communities.

While COSATU rejected the first iteration of the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JETIP), we come with solutions and insist that the JETP must:

• Prioritise decent work and local industrialisation
• Expand electricity access for the millions still excluded,
• Ensure transparency and accountability in the use of climate funds, and
• Protect public ownership of energy systems.

The Just Transition must not enrich consultants and private investors while workers lose their livelihoods. It must build a new economy rooted in equality and sustainability.

The Road to Belém

Comrades, as we move toward COP30 in Brazil, the world will look to the Global South to lead with courage and unity. This Exchange will finalise a Unified Labour Position, that will be from the trade unions across Africa, Latin America, and Asia outlining our five key commitments for COP30:

1. We demand a Global Labour Just Transition Framework which makes the ILO Guidelines on Just Transition and the UNFCCC Work Programme binding, enforceable, and accountable to workers.

• We demand Debt Free Climate Finance with a $100 billion annual commitment – primarily through grants – that is public, predictable, and accessible, with direct financing for worker led projects.

• We demand Energy Democracy and Public Ownership and commit to continue rejecting privatisation and campaigning for public renewable energy systems with access for all.

• We demand that decent work, skills for the future and social protection are built into all national plans, with specific attention on gender and youth responsive employment strategies.

• We commit to advancing Global South Solidarity, coordinating research and advocacy, and strengthening our campaigns ahead of COP30 and beyond.

Our deliberations over the next 3 days will chart our way forward, intensify our struggle and deepen our commitment. We will capture this in a declaration on the last day that includes our stance on how we advance a Just Transition, our demands to take to COP30 and our plan of action to strengthen progressive alliances and advance our struggle.

In ending, I must emphasise that the Just Transition is not about carbon targets it is about people’s lives, livelihoods, and dignity. It is not about charity – it is about reparation and justice.  We must build our own progressive and radical Just Transition that is South led, and Africa led, worker driven, globally united and serves the needs of the working class.

Let this 2025 Exchange mark the beginning of a new phase of labour leadership, where we move from declarations to transformation, from advocacy to implementation, and from solidarity to power. As we say in COSATU, no worker must be left behind. No community ignored. Global South must never be silenced. Let us march together to COP30 not to plead, but to lead. Let us march forward collectively, to demand a new world that serves people and the planet, not neo-colonial overlords and profit.

I declare this GSE 2025 officially opened.