Millions of South Africans have no electricity for up to 10 hours a day due to scheduled power outages blamed on dilapidated infrastructure.

That’s despite the country having one of the largest coal reserves in the world.

The province of Mpumalan produces around 80% of its coal supplies and much of its grid power, its air pollution is very high, and communities pay the price.

South Africa pledged to close some coal plants and replace them with solar and wind facilities at the most recent COP meeting, and the country received financial commitments from other states to support that effort.

Now, the government has said it wants to ‘relook’ at those agreements and is going to court to keep some coal plants open to mitigate the effects of load-shedding.

Last month Rampaphosa told the National Assembly “We will transition to cleaner energy but at our own pace and own time”.

Aljazeera.