The Centre for Environmental Rights
South Africa has many climate organisations, but the Centre for Environmental Rights is the strongest candidate for the country’s most effective climate NGO because it has changed what government and companies can legally get away with. Its power does not come from size or public visibility. It comes from using constitutional rights, community evidence and environmental law to challenge decisions that deepen fossil-fuel dependence or expose people to pollution.
CER is a South African non-profit organisation and law clinic based in Cape Town and Johannesburg. It was established in 2009 and opened in 2010 to support communities and civil society organisations defending the constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health or wellbeing. That mandate gives its climate work a sharper edge. In South Africa, climate harm is often felt first through dirty air, unsafe water, damaged land and insecure livelihoods, especially in coal and industrial regions.
Wandisa Phama, its Executive Director, leads the organisation. CER’s staff includes lawyers and researchers working on pollution and climate change, mining, corporate accountability, transparency and activist support. This mix matters because South Africa’s transition is not only about replacing coal with cleaner power. It is also about enforcement, public health, corporate conduct and the rights of communities that have carried the costs of fossil-fuel development for decades.
CER’s record is strongest where litigation and advocacy reinforce each other. It has represented or supported community and civil society partners in cases that connect air pollution, coal planning, climate risk and children’s rights. These cases are slow and technical, but their outcomes have shifted the terms of public debate.
Table 1: Selected CER climate-related actions and outcomes, 2022 to 2025
| Year | Action | Outcome / significance |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Deadly Air judgment | High Court confirmed that poor air quality in the Highveld Priority Area breached constitutional environmental rights. |
| 2024 | Cancel Coal victory | Court set aside plans for 1,500 MW of new coal-fired power after climate impacts and children’s rights were not properly considered. |
| 2024 | Minimum emission standards challenges | CER and partners continued legal challenges linked to weak air-pollution controls and exemptions for major emitters. |
| 2024 | Director duties opinion | Legal opinion clarified that directors may face liability if they fail to manage and disclose climate-related financial risk. |
| Ongoing | Life After Coal coalition | Coalition work with Earthlife Africa and groundWork links litigation, air-quality advocacy, public participation and opposition to new coal power. |
The Deadly Air case showed CER’s core strength: making pollution a rights issue, not only a technical regulatory failure. The Cancel Coal judgment extended that logic to future energy planning by questioning whether new coal power could be justified when cleaner options exist, and children will bear long-term climate harms. Its work on minimum emission standards keeps pressure on regulators and large emitters. At the same time, the director duties opinion takes climate accountability into the corporate sphere, where boards must consider financial risk, disclosure and long-term liability.
CER is also effective because it rarely works alone. Through the Life After Coal campaign, with Earthlife Africa and GroundWork, it has helped connect court action, air-quality advocacy, public participation and opposition to new coal power. That coalition model matters. A legal NGO can win arguments in court, but affected communities give those arguments legitimacy and urgency.
There are limits. Court victories did not automatically clean the air in Mpumalanga, fix weak enforcement systems or create decent alternatives in coal towns. Implementation still depends on the state, regulators, municipalities and companies that often move slowly. Still, effectiveness should be judged by whether an organisation changes what is possible. On that measure, CER stands out. It has made climate action a constitutional issue, strengthened community challenges to fossil-fuel development and created legal tools that make climate risk harder for government and industry to ignore.
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard South Africa Country Manager, Jone Carter.
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