The Presidential Climate Commission’s new report says progress is not happening at the pace and scale required
Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) executive director Crispian Olver on Monday said although the move to cleaner energy sources would cause disruptions in the jobs market, new development is set to address unemployment.
Speaking during a public colloquium on the just energy transition in Mpumalanga, Olver said the fossil fuel market would be disadvantaged as the country moved towards cleaner sources of energy bringing a new “way of work”.
“Jobs will be very different in the nature of work — these include mining, which will change because all of the open-shaft mining that we have in Mpumalanga will also shift as we move into deep-level mining for greener minerals,” he said.
Olver said the decline in the fossil fuel, gas, coal and liquid fuel markets would open opportunities in greener markets and would boost employment.
He said although there were not many jobs in the solar sector, the manufacturing of solar plants was labour intensive.
Olver called for South Africa to move with the world as it advances towards the fifth industrial revolution, where technologies aiding the increase in green energy, battery storage and electric vehicles improve.
“We are facing geopolitical tension and also a deep-seated economic transformation, in the order of industrial revolution. Last year, the flavour of the year was the fourth industrial revolution, and we are heading towards the fifth industrial revolution, which is the rapid decarbonisation of the global economy, which has been driven by technological chains for the last decade,” he said.
He added that solar and wind technology were becoming more affordable because of the technological innovation happening in the value chains linked to lower-carbon activities and green energy.
As part of the transition, the PCC has partnered with universities to train students and others to prepare them for the changing labour sector.
Olver said these sectors would grow. “For instance, green economy, green minerals take over, renewables, batteries, electric vehicles and the grid sector will all expand.”
The University of Mpumalanga’s vice-chancellor, Professor Thoko Mayekiso, said it was important to teach students about the effect of climate change to enable them to play a role in limiting it.
“There is no doubt in our minds, as the University of Mpumalanga, that this goal cannot be achieved without planned capacity build. It is important to mobilise the student community to be conscious of the challenges of climate change that affect the country,” she said.
Under the revised shutdown plan in the energy blueprint, the Integrated Resource Plan 2023, six power stations in Mpumalanga — Camden, Grootvlei, Arnot, Kriel, Tutuka and Hendrina — are scheduled to be decommissioned by the end of 2030.
Olver said it was important to start planning to decommission the plants and to introduce new economic opportunities in Mpumalanga.
According to the findings of the PCC report released last year, the closure of the power station, which had reached its 60-year lifespan, affected the livelihoods of people living in the surrounding area such as businesses selling food or providing accommodation to power plant workers.
The report also found that the initiatives to generate new opportunities such as establishing a manufacturing business for mobile microgrids were initiated too late and only after people had suffered the effect of the closure of the Komati power station.
“Communities and workers should be informed of the closure years ahead of time — as they are mapped out in the Integrated Resource Plan — and then Eskom and local and provincial governments must develop economic diversification plans for the surrounding district and region, with the involvement of workers and community members,” the PCC report said.