Resource plan falls short

Ndavhe Mareda’s article (Blueprint for transition from coal is too ambitious, October 31) identifies the problem as the solution to our energy needs. The draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) to reduce our reliance on coal for energy to less than 20% by 2050 is far too slow. As the Life After Coal coalition has pointed out, the document “appears oblivious to the immediate urgency of responding to climate change”.

The urgency is clear on the planetary and local levels. Mining and burning coal is one of the most destructive activities on the planet. It represents an urgent and immediate threat to all forms of life, specifically to scarce supplies of water, the degradation of arable land and toxic pollution of the air and water .

Poor, black South Africans are carrying the heaviest burden. Many communities living close to the operative coal-fired power stations and open pit, working or abandoned mines are dealing with forced removals and dispossession, loss of livelihoods, threats to food security, limitations on access to water resources and health problems associated with air pollution. At least 14% of households suffer from energy poverty in that they still lack access to the national electricity grid.

The IRP aggravates the problem by promoting new coal-based electricity from Thabametsi and Khanyisa. Thabametsi’s climate change assessment showed that it would be one of the world’s most greenhouse gas emission-intensive plants — releasing about 10-million tons of carbon dioxide annually. This makes a mockery of commitments to maintaining constitutional rights to a healthy environment as well as international obligations to reduce carbon emissions.

There is strong, scientific evidence that renewable energy will be practical and affordable globally by 2030. Research by the Million Climate Jobs campaign has demonstrated SA has the capacity to create the necessary jobs for the thousands of coal workers shortly to be made redundant by the closure of the five oldest coalfired power stations.

The development of renewable energy is one way of addressing the deepening unemployment and climate crises simultaneously. Or we can allow vested interests to continue promoting the model of the “minerals, energy complex” that has shaped SA’s history through a reliance on cheap coal and cheap black labour.

The IRP blueprint for transition from coal is not ambitious enough. A radical, transformative, just transition is needed involving changing our ways of producing, consuming and relating to nature to create a more just, equal and sustainable society.

Thembeka Majali Million Climate Jobs Campaign