NGO challenges authorisation of two IPP coal plants

Buoyed by a landmark judgment that halted the construction of a new coal-fired power station in Limpopo earlier this year, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) has made good on plans to up the ante in its campaign to get government to consider the full impact of new projects when environmental approvals are granted. According to a Miningmx report, this week it set the ball rolling on two new court applications in the High Court challenging the authorisation of two proposed independent power producer (IPP) coal-fired power stations – KiPower and Khanyisa – which the CER says are without a full assessment of the plants’ climate change impacts. ‘If you work against coal, you click a stack of environmental boxes – from water and soil pollution and food and water security to ecosystems and the impact on communities, all the way to climate change – which is why it is such an important battle,’ said Melissa Fourie, CE of the CER. ‘Coal-fired power stations only make sense because you’re not taking into account any of the externalities. One of the things we’re working towards is to make sure the impacts on health, the climate, water and soil are being considered.’ Inundated with requests for help, the CER ‘tries to be very strategic’ in the cases that they take on, said Fourie. ‘We pick cases that we can win; cases that we think can change the system.’