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In the Wall Street Journal on August 24, Richard Vanderford penned a piece, saying that Texas, in the US, had blacklisted BlackRock, BNP Paribas, UBS and other institutions for allegedly boycotting the fossil-fuel industry, the energy base of that state.
The stand taken by the state of Texas comes in the aftermath of Europe, the US and Japan restarting their nuclear and coal plants.
Folly of capital allocation in SA for energy security
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa. File photo
Published Aug 28, 2022
The announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa on emergency action on energy contained a laundry list of actions, but the most important was the maintenance of coal-fired plants – a welcome move for South Africa giving it more bang for its bucks.
This will allow South Africa the space to be back in the promise of what he announced in January 2017 at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, which was that load shedding in South Africa was history.
But this comes on the back of the financial and economic fight over use of fossil fuel versus renewables, a battle that is far from over.
Ramaphosa – taking a U-turn on his promise to the European Union and the US on the Just Transition with promises of clean energy – will not be an act of weakness, but one of waking up to the historical hypocrisy of prevaricating. This in the face of the brute force of colonial masters when it comes to matters of their self-interest.
Here is one of those moments of self-interest that came out last week.
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