- South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ms Barbara Creecy, will allow five of Eskom’s ageing power plants to exceed minimum emissions standards for five years after the country implements a limit on plant emissions in 2025.
- Neither Eskom or Creecy’s ministry have formally made the announcement in an official statement prompting many to speculate that the approval was pushed through before the country’s president announces his new cabinet representing a government of national unity.
- The ANC lost their majority in the May 29 national elections.
This means that the five coal power plants namely; Hendrina, Grootvlei, Arnot, Camden, and Kriel are allowed to exceed minimum emissions standards until 2030. Creecy said she based her decision on a report which said that closing the power plants could “plunge the country into darkness.” The country has been load shedding free for over 86 days. Read more
The report, which is not officially named or referenced by Creecy, states that that balancing the concern of even more power outages, with daily rolling power cuts, with the health impacts from pollution “was difficult and extremely complex.”
The South African government ordered two studies into the impact of air pollution on community and child health. Both studies showed emission limits it imposed on companies that emit the toxins are insufficient.
The government didn’t widely publicise the findings, a controversial decision given that it has faced lawsuits over pollution levels and is assessing whether to allow the state power utility to continue violating emission restrictions or enforce laws that could shut plants and worsen energy shortages.
Around the time of the second study’s completion, the government was sued by environmental activists for not enforcing its own laws in the so-called Highveld Priority Area and in 2022 South Africa’s High Court ruled that the government had breached citizens’ constitutional right to clean air. The government has appealed. Read more
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
