Protest action at Kusile Power Plant, South Africa
Greenpeace activists scaled a crane on the construction site of Kusile power plant in South Africa to protest their country's complete reliance on coal power.
© Greenpeace / Michael Baillie
This morning i'm writing from the top a 110m high crane inside the construction plant of Eskom's next collosal coal-fired power station, Kusile.
I'm here with five other climbers to highlight the true cost of coal power in South Africa. Our country has a severe fossil fuel addiction, and coal is our drug -- a drug that causes destruction at every step. South Africans cannot afford the costs of this addiction.
The damage that this coal-fired plant will cause, will cost South Africans R60bn a year in water use, climate change impacts, and human health costs. Those costs are on top of what Eskom is paying in upfront construction costs for the plant to be built.
The bottom line is that there is no future in coal!
Climate change is real and happening right now. If we don't take action to reduce our carbon emissions we risk facing catastrophic, runaway climate change.
South Africa is already the 12th largest CO2 emitter in the world, and the biggest in Africa. Kusile is not the way to reduce our very real impact on this continent and the African people -- like you and me -- who live here.
The time for an Energy [R]evolution is now! South Africa has some of the world's best renewable energy sources in the world. An ambitious program to use them more will createust be stopped thousands of new jobs, help us tackle climate change, deal with the ongoing energy poverty that still plagues South Africa, and secure us a brighter future!
South Africans deserve better than what dirty coal will give us. Our action today is about highlighting that. There is no future in coal, and Kusile must be stopped.
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