In a world that is now serious about climate change, environmentalists will have to review their prejudices. A controversy involving Eskom’s Medupi power station offers a cautionary tale about costs that may be hidden in the flood of cheap climate funding we are hoping for.
So why did SA take funding from the World Bank that required it to prepare to install equipment that might not be needed? Since 1994 the government had resisted borrowing from the Bank because of concerns about the onerous conditionalities it often imposed on its clients. Ironically, climate arguments were easily dealt with. Medupi, the bank’s board was told, would reduce Eskom’s COemissions per megawatt hour by enabling older, dirtier stations to be closed. Local environmental lobbies, fighting a rearguard action against the project, focused instead on SOlimits that would force Eskom to close many of its generators immediately.
That is a polite way of saying environmental regulators are shooting SA in both feet. Even with all six Medupi generators working, the government’s monitoring reported that atmospheric SOlevels at Lephalale met WHO guidelines throughout the past 12 months, with no unacceptable effects.