South Africa’s energy crisis has forced scheduled outages – Copyright AFP Luca Sola
Coal-rich but energy-starved South Africa will not immediately abandon its fossil-fuelled electricity generating plants as it transitions to cleaner forms of power, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Sunday.
South Africa, one of the world’s largest polluters which generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal, is in the grip of an energy crisis.
It has been blamed on ageing power stations, sabotage and theft of coal and spare parts by organised gangs.
Since 2021, the country has secured several billions of dollars in international loans and grants to support a green transition.
But Ramaphosa cautioned against “the perception that we are called upon to make a trade-off between energy security and a just transition to a low-carbon economy”.
Addressing his African National Congress (ANC) party’s senior officials, he said it was not the…
