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Virtual wheeling: The Selemela Solar Park in Lichtenburg, North West, generates and sells electricity to other parts of the country via a wheeling agreement. Pictured here is plant manager Tebogo Tong. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Video

Beyond the Grid: Pinging power from farms to factories

Solar power moves virtually from farmland in North West to factories hundreds of kilometres away. How it works and what it means for the country’s energy transition

Shadowed by the Sun: Hyperpigmentation, Melasma, and the South  African Cultural Climate – A Call for Clinical Intervention

South Africa, bathed in intense sunlight, grapples with an epidemic of hyperpigmentation and melasma. These skin conditions, marked by darkened patches, affect all skin tones,…

In Morocco’s drought neighbours battle over water allocation

Severe drought brought a farming village to its knees, but unresolved conflict is its biggest threat

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the climate change bill into law last month.

SA’s new law a propeller for the continent, say African climate specialists

South Africa is also playing a leading role during negotiations for climate policies, and is using its position to advance conversations for the whole of Africa

A woman holds a placard on the beach as hundreds of people (not visible) take part in a protest against the plan by Dutch oil company Shell to conduct underwater seismic surveys along South Africa’s East coast, at Muizenberg Beach, in Cape Town, on December 05, 2021.  (Photo by RODGER BOSCH/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Weak focus’ on climate, environment in election manifestos

Political parties are treating the issues as ‘peripheral’ concerns

Kenyan President William Ruto holds a press conference with the attendance of participating country leaders within the 1st Africa Climate Summit at the Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi, Kenya on September 6, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Kasuku/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

How Africa weathers the climate storm

To avert complete climate catastrophe, African countries need at least $277 billion per year in additional climate finance

People line a muddy road in this image tweeted by Malawi Red Cross Society on March 13. Photo: Supplied

Cyclone Freddy leaves trail of destruction in Malawi

The people of that country paid the price of climate changed fuelled by, among others, the petro-chemical industry that has declared record profits

Anglo American Platinum CEO Natascha Viljoen at the keynote panel debate: Security of supply – threat or opportunity in Africa’s metals and minerals supercycle context? (Photo: David Harrison)

The mining industry’s role in addressing the climate crisis and the just energy transition

Africa must capitalise on the shift to renewable energy, and process its minerals instead of just exporting them

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 in SA’s energy mix until 2040s, Creecy tells mining indaba

Coal still dominates the domestic energy mix, providing 81.4% of the total system load, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

Award-winning Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey talks to Steve Taylor about the history of Africa’s exploitation, the international community’s failure to recognise the climate debt owed to the Global South, and COP 27 (Photo: Tor Erik H. Mathiesen/AFP via Getty Images)

United Nations COP27 is rigged, won’t help with climate change

Award-winning Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey talks to Steve Taylor about the history of Africa’s exploitation, the international community’s failure to recognise the…

Pale males: Michael Bloomberg and other leaders attend the Climate Action Summit at the UN in 2019. (Ludovic Marin/AFP)

Most climate science is written by white men

In deciding how the world responds to the climate crisis, policymakers rely on research that tends to be written predominantly by men in the Global North

Determined: Climate change demonstrators from the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion protest in central London, promising two weeks of disruption. (Tolga Akmen/AFP)

Covid may collapse climate talks

When crises strike then selfishness prevails, as Britain has done with its vaccine ‘red’ travel list

Promises: African negotiators met in Cape Verde to demand that money pledged in 2009 is paid at COP26. (John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images)

Africa’s big adaptation ask at COP26

Africa causes just 4% of global emissions, but pays the price of them. With what money?

Photo: Laura Lezza/Getty Images

The Mediterranean sea of plastic

The quantity of rubbish in the sea is driving a growing alarm among countries whose economies rely on tourism

Place of mourning: The home where environmental activist Fikile Ntshangase was killed while children played outside. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)

Record number of land and environmental defenders killed globally in 2020

In South Africa, environmental activist Fikile Ntshangase and police detective Leroy Bruwer were killed

Carbon pollution: Ocean surface climates — its surface temperature, acidity and mineral concentration — are being changed by increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. (Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Ocean climate changes a threat to sea life

The world’s seas have absorbed about a third of all carbon pollution produced since the Industrial Revolution

We need to do more than recognise that water is a human right

Water is central to human life and cuts across the sustainable development goals water

Ambassadors from Kenya, Ghana, Liberia and Tanzania this week discussed how to improve climate literacy among Africa’s youth and announced the launch of a toolkit for the campaign. (Reuters)

Environmentalists launch tool kit to teach Africa’s youth about climate change

The environmental group Earthday.org has been campaigning to improve climate literacy and wants to make the subject compulsory at schools

High levels of climate warming could shrink range of wild-harvested food plants

In a recent study, the authors examined the climate change risk to 1 190 species used by 19 indigenous language groups in Southern Africa

Match of the day: Sport vs ecology

We need a profound rethinking of the meaning of sustainability in sport — the global commercial model is neither environmentally nor socially sound