Minister Barbara Creecy’s department presents roadmap on how to achieve 23 green targets set by the global ‘Paris Agreement for nature’ framework. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Coal will remain in South Africa’s energy mix into the 2040s, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said at the Mining Indaba on Wednesday.
“Our government has never advocated a sudden or precipitous move away from either coal fired generation or towards a low carbon economy,” Creecy told the annual conference.
“The National Development Plan and Eskom have both talked about attaining net zero emissions by mid-century, nearly 50 years from now. Building a low carbon economy and climate resilient society will not happen overnight.”
She said building a low carbon economy required wide-ranging technological, economic and societal changes for new forms of power generation, attracting new investment and prioritising the needs of vulnerable workers, people and social groupings.
“It is the task of a generation,” Creecy said, adding that this meant coal would remain part of South Africa’s energy mix well into the future and that improving energy availability from the existing power stations was a priority.
According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, coal still dominates the domestic energy mix, providing 81.4% of the total system load. Renewable energy in the form of wind and solar provided 6.6% in 2021.
“If we look at our Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) counterparts, India and China both have the biggest renewable generation programmes in the world,” Creecy said.
“And yet they are currently using coal. But the scale of their renewables bill tells us that they fully understand the economic transition risks that lie ahead and they have absolutely no intention of being cut out of future trade markets.”
Late last year China started mining and importing more coal after its worst heatwave and drought affected the functioning of its hydroelectricity, one of its largest sources of power. The government said it would provide more support for coal power generation at that “critical moment” to ensure that “there is no accident in power supply”.
Creecy used Mpumalanga to illustrate the importance of coal mining to the local economy.
“I think we all understand that the [Mpumalanga] economy is heavily dependent on coal mining and on the use of coal in energy generation,” she said.
“I had a very good picture in my mind when I was campaigning in Mpumalanga during the 2019 election.In every house there’s either an Eskom uniform hanging on the washing line or there is mining gear hanging on the washing line. That gives you a very deep sense of the vulnerability of the Mpumalanga community to the energy transition.”
The majority of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations are in Mpumalanga and 80% of the country’s coal is mined there.
Creecy continued: “When the climate commission went around and asked people [in Mpumalanga] what a just [energy] transition looked like, the people said they want to be part of understanding what the problem is and they want to be part of defining the solution.
“They also said it’s not going to help them if we develop jobs in renewables or the green hydrogen value chain in the Northern Cape.They don’t even know where Boegoebaai is. They said they have jobs here [in Mpumalanga] and are not giving up their coal jobs after being told that it’s for some moral cause they’ve never heard of leaving their families to starve.”
Boegoebaai is said to be a key hydrogen hub and will provide access to export markets.
“I think what that tells us is that we have to develop together with those communities, with organised labour and with the actual workers who are involved in this value chain,” Creecy said.
According to the Minerals Council, the coal industry employed 92 230 people (majority of which are in Mpumalanga) in 2019 (86 647 in 2018), representing about 19% of total employment in the mining sector.
“We have to talk about what is going to be the supply side labour interventions that are going to allow workers who are currently running coal fired power stations to run different kinds of power stations … These are the things we need to think about if we want to produce these jobs of the future and for this energy transition to be just,” Creecy said.
[/membership]