In addition to reducing emissions, clean energy transitions present unique opportunities to create socio-economic benefits (e.g. new decent jobs, reduced energy poverty and improved air quality). Tracking these benefits can help highlight and communicate the positive effects of clean energy transitions across different population groups.  

This year, the South African G20 Presidency and Brazilian COP30 Presidency have prioritised just and inclusive energy transitions and this Indicators Handbook has been developed to support and promote these efforts.

The Indicators Handbook is based on the voluntary G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Transitions, endorsed by G20 leaders in November 2024. The principles, which reflect varying perspectives, contexts and experiences, form a framework for approaching transitions that maximises benefits and mitigates the risk of unintended consequences. Designed as a technical resource, the Indicators Handbook provides guidance for governments and other stakeholders on identifying relevant indicators as a first step towards tracking policy design and implementation in line with the G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Transitions. The Handbook provides tools for tracking progress, evaluating the effectiveness of existing or planned programmes, and supporting the design of just and inclusive energy policies.

Recognising the diversity of national energy systems and socio-economic contexts, the handbook does not offer a prescriptive framework with a defined set of indicators. Instead, it outlines a selection of indicators and evaluation methodologies, drawn from practical applications, for each of the G20 principles. Most of these indicators have already been used by stakeholders across the world to address the key dimensions of just transitions. Countries can tailor these proposed indicators and evaluation methods to suit their unique priorities, institutional capacities and national policy landscapes. On the global stage, these indicators can also support countries as they develop their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other climate and adaptation strategies. 

As countries move from acknowledging principles on just transitions to translating them into implementation and progress tracking, international collaboration is more important than ever. This handbook lays the groundwork for ongoing cooperation among countries to identify, refine and develop indicators that advance just and inclusive energy transitions. Countries and organisations with well-established technical systems for data collection and monitoring policies can support others through capacity-sharing and knowledge exchange. Such an approach is crucial for enhancing mutual learning and scaling up results on just and inclusive energy transitions, at the pace and scale required to deliver global climate ambitions and strengthen energy security.

In 2024, the IEA Executive Director Dr. Fatih Birol convened a new Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions: Designing for Fairness to explore key issues on how to fully integrate the principle of fairness into the design of all clean energy policies.

The Global Commission is co-chaired by Alexandre Silveira de Oliveira, Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy and Teresa Ribera, European Commission Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. It comprises energy, climate and labour leaders from governments around the world, along with high-level representatives from international organisations and labour, Indigenous, youth and civil society groups.

In 2024, the Global Commission met directly before the G20 Energy Transitions Ministerial meeting in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. This was followed by the approval of the ten voluntary Principles for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions by G20 energy ministers and subsequently by leaders.

The Global Commission believes these principles constitute a powerful framework for helping governments to advance clean energy transitions in ways that maximise benefits and reduce negative impacts.

The ten G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions are:

1. Energy planning for just and inclusive energy transitions

2. End energy poverty

3. Social dialogue and stakeholder participation

4. Social protection

5. Policy inclusiveness

6. Respect rights

7. Invest in affordable and reliable solutions for just and inclusive energy transitions

8. Implement secure and sustainable solutions

9. Sustainable and inclusive economic growth for all

10. 10. Quality jobs and workforce development.

In 2025, as South Africa’s G20 Presidency is making just and inclusive energy transitions one of its priority areas, the Presidency invited the Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions1 to explore translating the voluntary G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Transitions into policy design, implementation, and tracking through the development of a Blueprint for Action on Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions and the Indicators Handbook.

The Blueprint for Action on Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions was launched at the meeting of the Global Commission on 12 June 2025 in Brussels, Belgium. In this Blueprint, the Global Commission developed a guidebook for governments and other stakeholders to design and implement clean energy policies in line with the G20 Principles in their own domestic contexts. The document includes more than sixty case studies representing different geographies and local contexts.

The Blueprint for Action and this Indicators Handbook support the development of South Africa’s G20 Action Agenda on Just and Inclusive Transitions.