Climate change presents one of the key challenges of the 21st Century, with wide-ranging impacts that exceed environmental degradation and encompass the realms of social justice, human rights, and global equity. According to the ND-GAIN country index[1], twenty-eight of the countries most vulnerable to climate change are in Eastern and Southern Africa. East Africa is on the frontline of the climate crisis with the region already experiencing more frequent and severe droughts, floods, and unpredictable rainfall patterns that threaten food security, water availability, public health, and economic stability. In 2022, five consecutive poor rainy seasons in the region, left more than 32 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia[2]. Such events have displaced millions, decimated livelihoods and have laid bare the urgent need for action.
In an effort to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution’s and manage emissions growth, Uganda on December 5th 2023 at COP28 in Dubai launched its Energy Transition Plan (ETP) signalling its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and ensuring universal access to electricity by 2030. Through the ETP, the country set five main goals – to provide universal access to electricity and cleaner cooking by 2030, to modernise and diversify Uganda’s energy mix and promote its efficient use across all sectors to support industrial growth, poverty reduction and social-economic transformation, to ensure secure affordable energy supply, to mitigate energy emissions in line with Uganda’s conditional climate commitments (a 20% reduction compared to baseline emissions in 2030) and to position Uganda as the energy hub for the East African region.[3] However, while all this looks a good move to enable Uganda undertake its transition to a low-carbon economy, the conversation must move beyond emissions targets and technological solutions to centre a far more foundational question: who bears the burdens of climate change, and who reaps the benefits of the transition? At the heart of this is the principle of climate justice: – a framework that recognises that although climate change affects everyone, its causes and consequences are unevenly distributed[4] with wealthier, high-emission nations in the Global North bearing a larger share of responsibility (92%) for creating the crisis and, as such, should have a moral and legal obligation to lead in addressing it.[5]
In Uganda, the stakes are extremely high. Climate change is not a distant threat but a lived reality. In Busoga region, landslides reportedly killed at least 1,000 people over the past decade and left thousands of families displaced and homeless, in 2022, over 900 hundred people died of hunger in the Karamoja sub-region as a result of prolonged drought. In this same region, it was reported by the Daily Monitor in 2022 that eight in every 10 households were food insecure, putting approximately 23,000 children at a high risk of severe malnutrition. Furthermore, the country is heavily reliant on climate sensitive sectors with agriculture not only accounting for approximately 40% of its GDP, but the sector also employs 80% of the country’s labour force and supplies 85% of its exports, making its economy highly vulnerable to climate change. The country is already experiencing rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, and increasing incidences of floods and landslides. These climate-related shocks disproportionately affect those who are least responsible for the crisis: smallholder farmers, women in rural areas, informal workers, and communities living in fragile ecosystems. This injustice is further compounded by the unequal access to energy and other critical services with over 40% of Uganda’s population still lacking access to electricity, and approximately 94% depending on biomass for cooking, leading to indoor air pollution and deforestation. For these communities, the energy transition is not about decarbonising existing lifestyles, but about gaining access to energy for the very first time. This context therefore demands a rethinking of climate action through the lens of justice.
Energy Access as a Justice Issue
Uganda’s energy transition offers both opportunities and risks for advancing climate justice. On one hand, investments in renewable energy particularly solar, hydro, and geothermal have the potential to close the country’s energy gap and reduce inequality. On the other hand, large-scale infrastructure projects can lead to displacement, land grabs, and loss of livelihoods if not managed equitably.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, for example, while framed as an economic opportunity, has raised serious concerns about environmental harm, human displacement, and the long-term climate consequences of locking Uganda into fossil fuel dependence. Uganda’s climate ambition must therefore be balanced with its development aspirations, ensuring that energy projects do not perpetuate existing injustices.
The Role of Law and Policy
Uganda has taken commendable steps to integrate climate considerations into its legal and policy frameworks. The Climate Change Act, 2021 is a landmark law that provides for climate planning, reporting, and compliance mechanisms. However, it falls short in explicitly addressing issues of equity and justice. Climate action plans often lack a clear commitment to safeguarding the rights of vulnerable populations or ensuring their meaningful participation.
An examination of page 27 of the Energy Transition Plan shows that the Policy outlines the Energy Transition Plan (ETP) as Uganda’s proposed pathway to achieve its five key energy objectives, aligned with the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2022 Sustainable Africa Scenario, supported by the Announced Pledges Scenario globally.[6] Two sensitivity cases are explored including the Regional Energy Hub Case (REHC) [7], which accelerates electricity generation, exports, electrification, industrial output, and adopts measures like CCUS and electrolytic hydrogen; and the No Nuclear Case (NNC), which adapts generation capacity if nuclear projects fail to materialise on time. [8]The Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) models energy evolution under current implemented measures without additional interventions. However, none of these enforcement scenarios integrates climate justice objectives, meaning that the enforcement framework focuses solely on growth, technology, and emissions control without embedding equity safeguards or rights-based protections for vulnerable groups and therefore the omission structurally disconnects policy execution from distributive and procedural justice imperatives.[9]
The net zero strategy of the Energy Transition Plan at Page 72 and 73, centres on peaking energy-related emissions in 2040, then declining to 21 Mt CO₂ by 2050, and reaching energy-sector net zero by 2065 through electrification, clean cooking, efficiency measures, industrial decarbonisation, CCUS, BECCS, hydrogen-based steelmaking, and negative emission technologies, while reducing reliance on reforestation. [10]These measures align with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and aim to position Uganda as a regional leader alongside fifteen other sub-Saharan nations with similar net zero targets. However, climate justice is absent from these objectives and the focus is purely technical and economic, aligned to international decarbonisation trends without harmonisation to climate justice frameworks like the Kyoto Protocol. [11]The absence of explicit justice-based provisions means that the transition pathway is not anchored in “common but differentiated responsibilities” nor does it guarantee equitable burden-sharing or meaningful participation by those most affected.[12]
Climate justice demands not only procedural justice which ensures that communities most affected by climate decisions are part of the conversation but a recognition of intergenerational dimensions. Many energy and environmental policies are developed in top-down ways, without adequate consultation with indigenous peoples, women, youth, or informal workers who must be actively involved in shaping decisions that affect their future. Participation remains fragmented, and access to climate information, grievance mechanisms, and legal redress is often weak.
There is a need for stronger alignment between climate policy and other legal frameworks such as land law, environmental regulation, gender policy, and indigenous rights instruments. The absence of integrated, rights-based approaches risks creating blind spots where vulnerable groups are left behind in the transition.
Towards a Just and Inclusive Energy Future
To truly honour the principles of climate justice, Uganda must place people at the centre of its energy transition. This means:
- Ensuring that energy planning is participatory, transparent, and inclusive.
- Protecting land rights and securing compensation for communities affected by energy projects.
- Expanding access to clean, affordable energy as a right, not a privilege.
- Building institutional capacity to enforce environmental and social safeguards.
- Using oil and gas revenues, where applicable, to invest in social infrastructure and renewable energy.
Conclusion: A Call for Equity and Resilience
Uganda stands at a crossroad. As it strives to meet its development goals while confronting the realities of a changing climate, the energy transition must be more than a technical fix it must be a moral and political commitment to justice.
Climate justice offers a framework for resilience that is not just environmental, but social and economic. It is a call to redistribute power, protect rights, and prioritise the well-being of communities over narrow economic gains. Only by centring justice in its transition can Uganda build an energy future that is truly sustainable, inclusive, and dignified for all.
By: Grace Atim Okeny
Director- ALARI Energy Limited
[1] https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking
[2]https://www.unocha.org/news/seven-things-you-need-know-about-climate-change-eastern-and-southern-africa
[3] Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, ‘Uganda Energy Transition Plan’ <https://memd.go.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/UgandaEnergyTransitionPlan-2023.pdf> accessed 14 August 2025.
[4] Global Witness. What is Climate Justice? ‘Climate justice’ as a concept recognises that, although global warming is a global crisis, its effects are not felt evenly around the world, dated 2nd Dec. 2021, https://www.globalwitness.org (accessed on 16 February 2025).
[5] Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC -United Nations, 1998. Articles 3 and 4.
[6] Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (n 3). At page 27
[7] Burak Guler, Emre Çelebi and Jatin Nathwani, ‘A “Regional Energy Hub” for Achieving a Low-Carbon Energy Transition’ (2018) 113 Energy Policy 376.
[8] Monique Cormier and Anna Hood, ‘Breaking the Impasse: The Case for Establishing a No First Nuclear Threat Norm’ (2024) 11 Journal on the Use of Force and International Law 142.
[9] Jose Carlos Cañizares, Samantha Copeland and Neelke Doorn, ‘Embedding Justice Considerations in Climate Resilience’ (2024) 27 Ethics, Policy & Environment 63.
[10] Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (n 3). At page 72 and 73
[11] L Shi and others, ‘Roadmap Towards Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Research’ (2016) 6 Nature Climate Change <https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2841>. accessed 14 August 2025.
[12] Armin Rosencranz and Kanika Jamwal, ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities: Did This Principle Ever Exist?’ (2021) 50 Environmental Policy and Law 291.
