While the country remains ahead of its target for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, South Africa remains the biggest polluter on the continent amid an ongoing energy crisis.
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Even though the 14th-largest emitter’s Nationally Determined Contribution, a target approved by the cabinet in 2021, only projected a decline from 2025, the output of climate-warming gases from that country is already decreasing.
Regular maintenance of the coal-fired power plants that generate more than 80% of South Africa’s electricity results in lower emissions of carbon dioxide and daily rotational cuts of more than 10 hours per day further reduce emissions from factories.
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‘It’s unintentional,’ Crispian Olver, the executive director of South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission, said in an interview with News24, in Johannesburg on Monday.
‘We reckon we are well within the range’ of meeting the 2030 target, he said.
The country aims to reduce its emissions to between 350 and 420 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030, an improvement on a target set in 2015 of emitting between 398 and 614 megatons by that date.
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In 2021 the goal was key to South Africa securing pledges of $8.5 billion in climate finance from some of the world’s richest nations.
He said that since some coal-fired plants already produce little electricity, delaying their decommissioning dates won’t have much of an impact on emissions.
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Keeping them open for another ‘year or two is neither here nor there,’ Olver said on an earlier webinar. ‘It’s very difficult to recommend the decommissioning of power stations in the middle of an energy crisis.’
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Picture: Unsplash