South Africa’s new environment minister must focus on people, not profits from fossil fuels – climate ecologist

There are huge profits to be made in exploiting South Africa’s natural resources, but these come at a cost to society and the environment. Pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and depletion of natural wealth have a disproportionate impact on the country’s Black and low-income communities and workforce.

South Africa needs an environment minister who will stand up for people who are threatened by pollution and the depletion of non-renewable resources. That includes future generations.

But Dion George, the new minister, doesn’t inspire hope for change. George, with a background in finance, is one of six leaders of the Democratic Alliance, the former official opposition in parliament, that President Cyril Ramaphosa had to appoint to his cabinet on 30 June 2024. This was part of a deal for a government of national unity that Ramaphosa formed after the African National Congress failed to win the majority vote in the 2024 elections. George was previously shadow minister of finance for the Democratic Alliance.

In a media interview just after his appointment, George signalled support for continuing to use coal while the energy transition was underway, indicating that he would not allow the South African government to be “bullied” into transitioning away from fossil fuels too fast.

As a political ecologist I have been writing about South Africa’s environmental justice and social movements, especially those challenging extractive industries and fossil fuels. They have robustly criticised both apartheid-era and post-apartheid environment ministers for the ongoing emphasis on market and technical solutions to environmental crises, and generosity to corporate polluters.

This includes criticism of George’s predecessor from 2018 to 2024, Barbara Creecy. This opposition will not change and should be taken seriously by politicians.

Pro-corporate eco-policy

If government continues to license more fossil fuel companies to mine and explore for fossil fuels, impoverished communities might not be better protected against pollution or damage to the environment from the fracking, offshore seismic blasting or toxic gas emissions that they have experienced and opposed to date.

Citizens’ resistance in the courtrooms and on the Indian and Atlantic Ocean beaches is part of a global climate justice movement. This movement aims to make the polluters pay ecological reparations (including climate debt for greenhouse gas emissions) and to clean up current pollution. It also insists on a rapid transition to renewable solar- and wind-generated energy.

George’s view is that money will be available in the markets and through foreign aid as climate finance for this transition. Yet European Union, UK and US funders are providing 97% of their Just Energy Transition Partnership financing (now worth US$9.3 billion or R158.1 billion) in the form of loans, with the neoliberal US routing its $1 billion (R17.9 billion) in loan guarantees through the private sector and its own commercial banks.

South Africa’s total private- plus public-sector foreign debt is already US$165 billion (exceeding 40% of GDP, the same ratio that in 1985 led to a default). That debt requires repayment in euros, pounds and dollars. As the country’s currency depreciates (for example, from its R6.30 to the US dollar level in 2011 to R18.30 to the dollar today), these repayments will become more expensive.

That means many new technologies, such as solar panels on the roofs of houses, won’t be economically sustainable due to the high capital and installation costs. These costs are typically R130,000 ($7,240) for six panels, an inverter and battery.

Failing to protect communities

Shell, TotalEnergies and Impact Oil are currently exploring for oil and gas offshore in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. These fossil fuels, once extracted, will dramatically raise the country’s scope three (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions to levels in excess of Paris Climate Agreement commitments. They will also disrupt communities which live on and generate a livelihood from already-stressed marine ecosystems that the fossil fuel companies want to mine.

When asked about this, George did not commit to protecting the climate, saying

if you look at exploration, if there’s going to be exploration off the coast, for example. Well, there’s an impact on the ocean ecology, there is an impact on the communities that might be reliant on fishing, for example.

George also signalled support for coal, the dirtiest form of electricity generation:

we are sitting on a pile of coal. That’s what we have here. We’ve been using that. So it was inevitable that we are going to use that for energy. And that is just, so that is the reality. You cannot change it. The fact of the matter is that we do not have enough electricity actually, in our grids.

Currently, 85% of South Africa’s electricity comes from coal. Yet with sufficient political will, coal can be left unexploited. Even Europe reduced coal combustion by 22% in 2023 compared to 2022.

South Africa is already taking far too long to ditch fossil fuels. In 2022, the Climate Justice Charter Movement lobbied European governments to impose climate financial sanctions on South Africa. Although the west ignored that call, climate trade sanctions are imminent. Starting in 2026, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will lower South African exports to Europe and the UK, as new tariffs will punish the excessively carbon-intensive embedded energy in these exports.

Fossil capital and South African politics

Though he is learning climate-woke rhetoric, George joins at least three cabinet colleagues from the African National Congress who have backed the use of fossil fuels.

Electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa favours keeping coal-fired power plants open longer. Ramokgopa even wants to reopen the coal-fired Komati power plant plant that was shut in 2022.

Another fossil fuels champion is minerals and petroleum minister Gwede Mantashe.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has in the past suggested that government force banks to finance more coal projects. In 2022, he promoted new methane gas and nuclear plants.

We also need to bear in mind that George will be subjected to lobbying by climate-insensitive mining and smelting corporations such as the coal operations Thungela (ex-AngloCoal), Exxaro Resources and Seriti Resources. They also include Anglo American (with its reliance upon smelters for platinum); steel giant Arcelor Mittal; and the company that hosts the world’s single most damaging CO2-emissions hotspot, Sasol.

The Energy Intensive Users Group of 27 corporations (which consume 42% of South Africa’s energy but provide just 4% of jobs) and the National Business Inititative also want to retain a fossil-addicted economy, albeit slowly shifting from coal to methane gas.

George has claimed commitment to combat climate change but holds a pro-corporate ideology. It will be up to the environmental justice movement to intensify its activism and change the balance of forces.