Dumisani Mahlangu sits in the cab of a dragline excavator, digging 40-tonne shovels of coal from an opencast mine outside Johannesburg. “Coal has made me what I am,” he says of his well-paid job in a country where one in three people lacks work. “I wanted to be a doctor, but God put me in the mines.”
South Africa is among the world’s most coal-dependent nations. Coal accounts for roughly 85 per cent of its electricity, making the country of 60mn people the world’s 13th-biggest emitter of carbon, bigger than Britain.
That puts South Africa, with income per capita of roughly $7,000, among the most inefficient at turning fossil fuels into economic output. But it also means there are quick wins to be had if finance can be found to help South Africa — and other countries like it — transition more quickly to clean energy.