‘South Africa tightens restrictions for new coal power in ‘landmark’ ruling’ 6 August 2020

South Africa is tightening environmental demands for new coal-fired power plants, after what campaigners called a ‘landmark’ ruling that licences for water use should consider the risks of climate change. Global warming is projected to lead to increased droughts and stress on water supplies in South Africa, which generates about 90% of its electricity from coal, one of the highest rates in the world. The nation’s Water Tribunal in Pretoria upheld an appeal by environmental campaigners to scrap two water use licences granted in 2017 by the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation to Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power for the development of the 600MW capacity Khanyisa coal-fired power station.

…“The landmark aspect is that for the first time climate change is specifically confirmed to be a ‘relevant factor’ to be taken into account when considering a water use licence application,” Michelle Koyama, attorney at the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), which acted on behalf of groundWork, told Climate Home News on Thursday. Any company that intends to start any sort of project which requires a water use licence and which will implicate climate change – such as a coal-fired power station – should bear this judgment in mind when applying for a water use licence,” Koyama said.

South Africa says it is working to curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, partly by shifting away from coal. Its emissions rose by 20% to the equivalent of 512 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2015 from 426 million in 2000, the government said in a 2019 report to UN Climate Change. It said that emission would have been 631 million without efforts to rein in emissions. In its climate plan dubbed “peak, plateau and decline”, South Africa foresees emissions between 396 and 614 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from 2025-2030.