Climate Justice

Campaign Contents

Campaign Overview
Stories
Publications
Climate Justice Convenings
#CancelCoal
Just Us and the Climate
Opinion Pieces
Webinars
In the Media
Gallery

SECTION27’s climate justice work primarily addresses how the climate crisis is places the right to access healthcare services and basic education. We aim to ensure that system reforms and budgets are informed by, and responsive to, the lived realities of those most affected.

We are a founding member of the Climate Justice Coalition, a young coalition of organisations that fight for a just energy transition, challenge harmful policies, build grassroots power, and ensure climate action prioritises workers, frontline communities and social justice.

We also represented the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) as amicus curiae in the landmark #CancelCoal case, successfully challenging the government’s plan to procure 1 500 MW of new coal-fired power under the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan. We brought forward the lived experiences of Vaal communities to demonstrate how additional coal generation would further degrade air quality and violate the right to health, especially for vulnerable groups such as Black women and children.

Our work aims to drive systemic change through strong advocacy, expert research and meaningful community engagement. Grounded in constitutional obligations and lived experiences, our strategy aims to secure climate-resilient, accessible health and education systems, with collective action key to ensuring the state fulfils its obligations to current and future generations.

Climate Justice Stories

In 2025, we started a series of community engagements in the Eastern Cape with clinic committees and people displaced by flooding to understand their experiences and the state’s obligations in planning for a climate-resilient health system. We documented their stories for publication and will support their participation in future engagements with duty bearers so that decision-makers hear directly from affected communities.

PHOTO STORY: Thulandivile Women Weathering the Storm

STORY: Forgotten in the Floods: Women of Thulandivile Rebuild from the Wreckage

On the night of 18 February 2022, while most of Queenstown slept, the community of Thulandivile woke to chaos. A nearby dam burst, unleashing torrents of water that tore through their small riverside town. Within minutes, homes filled with water, families were separated, and the community was thrust into extraordinary survival mode.

Vaal Triangle Priority Area Health Impact Report (2025)

Advocacy Toolkit: Climate-proofing Children’s Right to Access Healthcare Services and their Right to Basic Education (2025)

Learning Brief: Opportunities and Constraints in Integrating Climate Justice in Health and Basic Education using an Advocacy Agenda (2025)

Climate Change As a Human Rights Risk (2024)

Climate Justice Convenings

On 28 and 29 February 2024, SECTION27 hosted a convening of public interest law organisations, social movements, community-based organisations, youth organisations and activist academics to unpack the climate crisis and its impact on socio-economic rights. The conference was organised with three key outcomes in mind, namely:

Increasing collaboration between organisations in the sector regarding climate justice;
Co-creating a plan of action to address the vulnerabilities of the respective sectors;
Increasing participants’ knowledge and awareness of the threat of climate change to the health and education sectors.

In 2025, SECTION27 hosted a second convening aimed at collaboration and gathering insights from all participants, creating a space where we can work together to find solutions together. The roundtable, titled “Lessons in Overcoming Barriers in Climate in Health and Education,” was designed to share knowledge among organisations and advocates working at the intersection of climate, health, and education.

#CancelCoal

SECTION27 represented the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) in an amicus intervention in the groundbreaking constitutional case that sought to set aside the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy’s decision, which the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) concurred to, to procure 1 500 MW of new coal-fired power as stipulated in the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

The application was launched in the Gauteng North High Court by the African Climate Alliance, Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action and the groundWork Trust, represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights against the Minister, NERSA and others. The application objected to the Minister’s decision on the basis that the Minister and NERSA failed to consider the adverse impact of the procurement of new coal-fired energy on various constitutional rights.

VEJA represented by SECTION27 was admitted as a friend of the court in the matter. VEJA’s submissions sought to support the applicants’ case and to highlight the intersectional discrimination faced by its members who are extensively affected by air pollution in the Vaal Triangle.

Just Us and the Climate

On 12 October 2020, the CJC launched the “Just Us and the Climate” podcast, which boldly centres the climate crisis in public interest discourse. SECTION27 hosted two episodes this season, the introductory episode and an episode on the impact of climate change on education in the South African context