CAPE TOWN - When governments, development finance institutions (DFIs) and energy companies talk about “a just transition to clean energy”, the words “air pollution” and “poor air quality” hardly feature in the cornucopia of definitions and rationales.
The narrative has become so corrupted in a world obsessed by the hype of achieving Net Zero by 2050 and the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 – both of which incidentally are almost certainly targets too far and ambitious.
Another false narrative perpetrated almost in passing by governments with the collusion of DFIs, the energy sector and their lobbyists, is that “the complex transition transformation process” is prohibitively too expensive for governments to implement, and therefore the role of the private sector and private equity is sacrosanct.
In a world full of uncertainties and ravaged by economic failure, pandemics, conflict and obscene levels of inequality, governments unfortunately are beholden to this market approach towards policy making in climate mitigation and energy transition, which transcends economic orthodoxy across the political spectrum.
In reality, it buys into the failure of the Bretton Woods institutions.
The EU’s Just Transition Mechanism under its Green Deal, refers to “a fair transition to a climate-neutral economy, leaving no one behind.” The emphasis is on climate adaptation, renewables, job creation leading to higher GDP growth and so on.
In South Africa on 18 March 2022 Justice Colleen Jane Collis in the Gauteng High Court came to the rescue of those very compatriots whom successive ANC governments have left behind in the Mpumalanga Highveld region, home to 4 million people and regarded as the world’s most toxic and polluted cluster thanks to its 12 coal-fired power stations.
Collis delivered a body blow to the big polluters in South Africa - Eskom, the debt-ridden electricity utility, and petrochemical giant Sasol - in a landmark judgement on behalf of the residents in the “Deadly Air” class action complaint brought by climate justice activists and human rights lawyers in 2019.
The judge upheld the complaint that poor air quality in the coal belt was a breach of residents’ constitutional rights, giving the environment minister Barbara Creecy a year to clean up the government’s act by enforcing a clean air plan drawn up over a decade.
Eskom’s Emalahleni coal mine in Mpumalanga, one of 15 across the country, which supplies most of its coal feedstock, has contributed to making South Africa the world’s 12th biggest CO2 and the largest SO2 emitter.
“If air quality fails to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, it is a prima facie violation of the right. When failure to meet air quality standards persists over a long period of time, there is a greater likelihood that the health, well-being and human rights of the people subjected to that air are being threatened and infringed upon,” declared Judge Collis in her 123-page judgement.
The implications of the judgement are manifold. It damages the reputation of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s credentials as a champion of the rule of law when his own citizens have to fight through the courts to get protection against noxious air pollution.
It violates the very spirit of that unique African concept of humanity towards others (ubuntu), the supposed leitmotif of democratic South Africa.
It makes a mockery of his climate action policy and his Western supporters such as the UK and EU, trying to wean the country off its dependence on coal through a R131bn mobilisation funding over the next five years. Coal accounts for 80% of South Africa’s energy mix.
Poor air quality, as Justice Collis stressed, falls disproportionately on the shoulders of marginalised and vulnerable communities who bear the burden of disease caused by air pollution. The links between human rights, health, and environmental protection are well-established in international law, accepted by states in agreements but partially implemented in practice.
South Africa’s air quality standards are on par with those in the UK. Both, however, fall short of the updated recommended lower air quality guidelines of WHO.
Air pollution is a universal phenomenon. It contributes to climate change and is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health. WHO estimates that 9 million deaths each year including 750,000 children, from diseases such as pneumonia, stroke, ischemic heart disease, COPD, and lung cancer, are due to exposure to air pollution. Inhaling dirty air increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and of severe COVID-19.
In 2020, 99% of the world population was living in places where the WHO air quality guidelines levels were not met. Each year, close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene.
In a more sinister development, Juliane Kippenberg, Associate Director at Human Rights Watch, revealed that a new UN Report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2022, is raising renewed alarms about toxic pollution’s devastating impact on human rights.
A particular focus of the report, she added, was on “sacrifice zones,” - areas where disadvantaged communities suffer extreme exposure to toxic chemicals, and where their rights are intentionally compromised – ostensibly for economic growth. Documented cases include those in the US, India and Zambia.
Underinvestment in clean transport and poor political leadership across the world is the bane of current global politics, in which lip service seems to be the norm fuelled by the fear of electoral dynamics of ‘unpopular fuel taxes, prices, transport policies and nationalisation/privatisation of services.’
Parker is an economist and writer based in London
Cape Times