In order to protect the rights of children, they must live in energy poverty. That is the message of the Pretoria High Court, which has just overturned government plans to provide an additional 1,500 megawatts of much needed electricity through coal-fired power plants.
A Dec. 4 ruling by the court “found that the government had failed to adequately consider the impact of coal on children’s rights, particularly their right to a healthy environment,” according to a report in the Mail & Guardian.
There can be no reasonable doubt that providing high-quality energy in the form of electricity is absolutely essential to higher living standards, and, indeed, to a healthy local environment. Without access to electricity, families rely on in-home combustion, supplied by gas canisters, wood, or even dung. The indoor air pollution experienced by people using these low-grade energy sources is much higher than the outdoor air pollution generated by modern, clean coal plants.
The technologies in use in the latest coal-fired power plants in South Africa are very clean, but this is swept under the rug by the international owners of the economy, their media, and their greens. The solar and wind technologies promoted by the ultra-green entities that brought the suit, are not only much more expensive over the full life-cycle of the technologies, but have unreliability built in. How does this serve the rights of children? Their families will be thrown back on in-home combustion mentioned above whenever solar or wind fails them—or when they can’t pay the higher electricity bill. The ruling elite is using the courts to force South Africa to rely on solar and wind—and in-home combustion.
The fight for energy is not over; the case can still be appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Constitutional Court.
