Verna NEL, University of the Free State, South Africa
Mark ORANJE, University of Pretoria, South Africa
For almost the last hundred years, coal has been the sole source behind South Africa’s electricity-generation, with (1) a substantial investment in that technology, (2) a large workforce employed in the coal-energy industry, and (3) a number of settlements owing their existence to it. Emalahleni Local Municipality, located in the heart of South Africa’s Mpumalanga coal mining and electricity generation region, has several coal-fired power plants, many of which are old, inefficient and unreliable. It consequently is a region with high levels of atmospheric pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Eskom, the state utility responsible for electricity supply to the nation since 1923, is struggling with heavy debts and ageing infrastructure and has been further weakened by state capture running into billions of Rands. The result of all of these challenges has been frequent power shortages/outages that have slowed economic growth, severely damaged the national psyche and hampered domestic and foreign direct investment. As a signatory to the Paris Accord and a 2021-Climate Change Bill, South Africa is slowly moving from coal to cleaner energy and embarking on climate change mitigation. However, despite the public commitments to pursuing clean and renewable energy, there are many challenges to ensuring this transition, not least the vested interests in the ‘coal complex’.
In this paper, the complex problem and multiple conflicts between business, labour and national, and local government involved in ensuring the desired just transition from coal is explored. This is done against the background of (1) near-to-total national coal dependency, (2) the South African electricity-generation crisis, and (3) the many lives, livelihoods, settlements and industries built on and around the coal and related industries.
Mots clés : Coal dependency|renewable energy|climate change| just transition|Emalahleni
A103219VN