JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The executive director of South Africa’s Presidential Commission on Climate Change called the country’s coal industry delusional on Wednesday, saying the market for the fossil fuel is going to dwindle rapidly in the next decade.
South Africa, which gets most of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, is grappling with rolling blackouts, while coal miners are exporting more of their product to take advantage of sky-high prices.
“The industry is delusional, and I’m really struggling to get a sober conversation with the industry,” Crispian Olver said at a conference on coal and the energy transition in Johannesburg.
“Our view is the coal market is going to drop off radically in the 2030s and particularly after 2035,” he said during a panel discussion with executives from coal miners Seriti Resources and Menar Resources.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday made fresh pledges to tackle the country’s worst-ever power crisis, promising to expand power generation, slash red tape and boost renewable energy procurement.
“The transition is coming, but it’s going to be impossible to have a conversation with the industry if we can’t get past the basic denialism,” Olver said.
He said he wants to work with the coal industry to manage a “just transition” that would ensure alternative jobs are created in coal-dependent areas such as mining hub Mpumalanga.
(Reporting by Helen Reid; editing by Jason Neely)
