The Sunday Story: The Coal Life

On this episode, we head to South Africa, an economic powerhouse on the African continent.

For decades, South Africa's enormous electric grid has relied on coal.

Now the country is in the midst of a massive experiment to switch to renewable energy.

This change is expected to vastly reduce pollution, but it may also ruin towns and lives in the

Coal Belt of South Africa.

For some workers, it feels like the government is destroying their only foothold to a stable

life.

Radio Workshop is a podcast that collaborates with youth reporters at radio stations across

Africa.

Host Lesete Mwakle sent a youth reporter along with a senior producer to a town in the heart

of the Coal Belt to ask the question, what will happen to people who've built their lives

around coal?

Nontogozo lays out a feast for her family, her two children and her husband, Adam, who

loves the pork ribs.

Creel is a small town in an area considered the Coal Belt region.

Its biggest employer is the coal industry.

Look up any images of Creel on the internet and you'll see lots of pictures of huge power

plants spewing smoke.

This kossana's live a modest yet comfortable life here.

They own a charming three bedroom house.

They have a large family car.

Their kids are in school.

They're not struggling to make ends meet and they owe it all to coal.

Also my mother.

It's a huge expense and so there's a lot riding on her.

But Ferzaga isn't interested in a career in coal like so many other young people in this

region.

She believes that one day she'll be a successful lawyer.

forever.

coal industry.

I was very lucky because some of the people, they never, never, never work in their entire

lives.

in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where well-paid jobs for black people are hard to come by.

At that time, Creel was among the fastest growing towns in the country.

There were plenty of jobs, in the coal mines or at the handful of coal-fired power stations

in the area.

It only took Ntogozo a few months to land a job at Creel Power Station, which is operated

by South Africa's state-owned power utility, Eskom.

Ntogozo was hired as a cleaning supervisor.

She also clearly remembers the day and exact time she met her husband, Adam, while working

at the plant 20 years ago.

But now, as a father of two, he prefers to be called by his middle name, Adam.

Adam was born in Creel, on a farm on the outskirts of town.

In grade 10, he dropped out of high school.

He was 19 then, but he easily found a job at the Creel Power Station in 1984, as a fitter.

Adam maintained and serviced the station's water treatment equipment.

A sweeping change is about to engulf all of Creel, and South Africa, and the rest of the world.

There's a radical transition coming to the energy industry, and so it didn't take long

for this Kausana Sunday lunch conversation to shift from food to the closure of the power station.

So how many, it's seven years gone.

The government's seen it, on the newspapers.

Nearly 80% of the emissions come from energy.

But if all goes according to plan, the entire energy sector in South Africa will be rewired.

Renewable energy will replace coal, a transition intended to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

And it's inevitable.

Coal is going away.

But what happens to the people who have built their lives on coal?

The world is watching to see how Creel, and families like the Kausanas, are going to do it.

In the best-case scenario, South Africa's drive towards renewable energy will deliver

new and better jobs.

It'll protect the environment.

It'll make energy cheaper.

People will have their voices heard.

And some of the wounds they've suffered in the past will be healed.

Experts call that a just transition.

But Adam doubts the transition will succeed.

He says there won't be new jobs.

It's going to be a ghost town.

A lot of people are worried that they've already been forgotten.

I'm Lisette Mokwate.

This is Radio Workshop.

To tell this story, producer Darshan Moodley and reporter Sia Mokwena spent several days

in Creel.

And they had one central question in mind during their reporting.

Yeah, it's going to be very hard.

It's going to be very hard.

his PPE.

That's personal protection equipment.

gloves and starts work at 7 a.m.

Adam's had a lot of different jobs at the power plant.

After a few years in one division, he'd get a promotion.

A few years later, he'd get another.

Today, he works with coal ash.

That's one of the byproducts from burning coal.

It's Adam's job to prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere.

new generation of giants.

It was the largest coal-fired power station in the Southern Hemisphere.

It was equipped with six 500-megawatt units.

That could power over a million homes for a year.

Adam loves working at the Creel Power Station.

The work may be hard and he knows it's bad for the environment.

But his job is well paid.

He also receives good benefits for his family.

I like my job.

I know my job as I know myself.

As the Skosanas mentioned earlier, the plant where they work is slated to close in 2030,

in just seven years.

In fact, the plant is already shrinking its operations.

And other plants in the region have already closed.

The government promises a just transition.

They say new jobs will be created in renewable energy projects to replace the coal plants.

But the community is worried it won't happen.

And Adam says people are already moving away.

A lot.

And where do they go?

Cape Town.

Cape Town.

Mecklenburg.

Free State.

Overseas.

Nowadays they are going to Australia.

Australia, New Zealand.

But we found some residents don't show up because they are held in the middle of the day.

Others don't trust the government and refuse to go.

And frankly, a lot of people we've spoken to hadn't even heard the term just transition, including Adam.

That word, it's a new word to me, but I know this one, it's a little bit difficult for me to answer.

Were we the first people to tell you about just transition or had you heard it before?

No, it was my first time.

What impact do you think it's going to have on you and your family with this just transition going through?

Well, I really don't know.

I know coal, carbon is affecting our lives.

What I can say maybe, let them try to accommodate both of them, balance them and see if it's going to work or not.

Unlike just taking coal away on the spot.

That one is going to affect a lot of people because people are going to lose their jobs as they are losing jobs right now.

And where are they going to work?

That's the biggest problem that we are facing right now.

But tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs.

She worries about finding work to support her family.

Her mom no longer works and her dad will have to retire in seven years.

That means I'll have to drop out and get a job then.

It's devastating.

We'll be right back.

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We're back with The Sunday Story.

We're listening to Lesede Mwakle and her team at Radio Workshop in South Africa

tell the story of a family from a mining town east of Johannesburg.

The family and the town are trying to understand their future as the mine prepares to close

amid the country's transition away from fossil fuels.

Here's Lesede.

to give back the land it appropriated when coal was in high demand.

For generations, Adam's family lived on a huge farm on the outskirts of Creel.

He offers to take us there.

We are going on a farm now.

Torontine Farm. 71-AS.

It's the name of the farm and the number.

How often do you make this drive to the farm? How often do you go?

Maybe, per month, I will go there twice or three times.

that's completely inaccessible with a regular car.

Fortunately, Adam has a 4x4 SUV.

and it's all around, all around, all around.

surrounded by hectares of rolling grasslands.

Cattle roam about in the distance, and there's a lone tree.

Beneath it, a corrugated iron shack that serves as housing for farm workers.

It has no piped water or electricity.

Even though Adam has access to the area, it's no longer his family's land.

It's owned by a coal mine.

When Adam's family lived here, they were considered labor tenants.

They worked in exchange for a portion of the land.

They raised cattle, grew crops, and built their homes.

But when a mining company bought the land,

the Skosanas were never made part of the deal.

The land they'd worked so hard for was simply taken away.

We are now at home.

He remembers seeing his uncles, aunts, and grandparents every day.

Seven houses from our family.

Sophie. Sophie Skosana.

This one is my grandfather. His name is Janchi Skosana.

He died in 1975.

This one is his brother.

Some are marked with tombstones, others are not.

What it shows is a connection to this area, dating back to the 1800s.

That's six generations of Adam's family who've lived in Creel.

Some of them were the first farmers and herders in the area.

Adam's father was a farmer before becoming a contract worker at Eskom.

He poured concrete to build the foundations of the town's power stations.

Starting from here.

Somewhere around here it was a kitchen.

In here it was my father's room.

It was a dining room.

It was my sister's room.

Somewhere here.

Adam longs for that time in his life.

He wants to go back to living on the farm.

But when the coal mine bought the land,

they heavily blasted the area to reach the coal underneath.

And as a result, his family's mud and brick houses cracked and collapsed.

You know, I remember how the buildings were.

It's painful.

It's painful.

The land.

Where is this?

Okay.

It's a little bit mixed up now.

But it's in there.

It should be here.

Yes.

In front of me I've got the documents

concerning the claim of the farm, Torfantin 71.

That's where we were born and bred.

But that fight has been going on for almost half his life.

The first claim that has been done.

The first one was in 1996.

But Adam says whenever he's spoken with representatives at the mines,

they deny his ownership.

France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States,

along with the European Union,

are backing South Africa's decarbonisation efforts.

They are committing $8.5 billion

towards the first phase of transition to renewables.

It sounds like a lot,

but it's only a fraction of what the country needs

to turn off coal and shift to renewables.

A lot more money is needed to create jobs

to absorb the layoffs that will happen in coal.

Money will be needed to consult with communities

and provide social welfare for those who need it.

And money will be needed for one more thing.

In South Africa, we call it restorative justice,

so people like Adam get back what was taken from them.

how do we deal with the historical injustice?

at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies.

It's a research institute

that supports the development of economic policies.

Gaylo leads their work on the just transition

and restorative justice.

in the South African context,

which doesn't feature in the global north context.

They don't talk about restorative justice in the global north.

That's government's planning tool.

He says in a perfect world,

the plan is to leave no one behind.

I'm like, hello?

Most people are behind.

They're already behind.

It's not just about leaving no one behind.

We have to bring everyone already to some level

before we can take them along.

those past injustices while tackling new ones.

That's a big, nearly impossible task, he says.

Take Adam's land claims case.

It was lodged almost two decades ago.

Nothing has happened.

Much of it is due to the backlog of claims

and the lack of staff and resources to process it.

Claims go on for years due to disputes, fraud and corruption.

Gaylo says he witnessed the frustrations with government firsthand

at a public stakeholder meeting in a coal town.

He watched residents grab the mic to raise all kinds of complaints,

from housing to water.

It was like, your just transition feels very distant to me right now

because I can't put bread on the table,

I don't have water, I don't have electricity,

and you're talking to me about just transition.

and the future of jobs.

Will there be enough?

We approached local politicians in Creole.

We reached out to a few academics working on renewables.

We made several attempts to speak to ESCOM,

the state-owned power utility.

None of them were willing to talk to us.

So we asked Gaylo,

will renewable energy create enough jobs

to replace 90,000 coal jobs in South Africa?

No, there's not.

No single industry is going to replace all those jobs.

And on top of that, then we would end up with the same pattern.

Another kind of mono-economy, it's not what we want.

We need to look at diversifying the economy of the province.

But let me be clear,

the notion that everyone employed in coal

must now work in renewable energy

makes no sense.

None whatsoever.

Very different type of skills.

Very different locations.

will be created in and around Creole.

And those jobs are not on par with coal jobs.

But Gaylo says there's still hope.

In his view, it starts with shutting down coal mines immediately

and then hiring those retrenched coal workers

to rehabilitate the land.

Jobs that cannot be created anywhere else

because they have to be on the mine.

It doesn't take huge amounts of skills

and it can really start to create virtuous cycles

in terms of rehabilitating the land, the water.

From manufacturing to agriculture and tourism.

Even coal ash, the by-product of burning coal,

can be used to make bricks and fertilizer.

He says there's major job opportunities

once government starts to think out of the box.

We'll get it wrong, but let's do things.

Let's start.

If we wait for the perfect plan, the perfect project

that ticks all the boxes,

we're never going to get anything done.

But now I feel like we're waiting for that unicorn.

In my room.

I consider my room the best room in this house.

and Fezeka shows us her bedroom,

there are a few photographs from high school.

A teddy bear on the bed,

a small desk built by her dad,

and then on a shelf above her window

where it can't be mishandled or broken.

She keeps her most prized possession.

I can't take it down.

I really love that rock.

And then there are also these ones here.

But then these ones, I love them because they change colors.

I just love the rock.

Fezeka considered following in her dad's footsteps

to work in the mines.

She wanted to be a geologist,

but she changed her mind.

That's when I was interested.

And the more I heard my dad saying,

I'm going to look at this lawyer because of this matter.

I'm going to look at this lawyer.

Oh, another trial.

What's what?

Justice is not served.

And then I was like, oh, why don't I pursue law?

She thinks it's fair that he gets his land back.

But the government process takes so long

that people die while waiting for their land claims to be settled.

And in the midst of all those delays in justice,

young people are looking outside Creole for opportunities to succeed.

And Fezeka fears the worst.

isn't certain that law is a good career choice for Fezeka's personality.

But she is certain that she wants her daughter to keep away from jobs in mining.

Ndogozo doesn't see a future for Fezeka and her sons, Pumelelo, if they stay.

Yeah, you must let them go.

He's original from Creole, so we have to go back to the farm.

But otherwise, we'll see you next time.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

It's a long ride, several hours.

They'd only be back by nightfall,

and so our reporters Sia and Darshan say their goodbyes to the Kosanas.

I want to be remembered.

Is it?

and then the second story is coal,

what's the next story?

Okay, as they are talking about this renewable,

maybe, maybe.

I'm not 100% correct.

Maybe they will be there.

And Fezeka, maybe it's going to be law.

Maybe that's the new family business.

Yes, it can be.

a youth reporter from Emalaleni FM,

one of the many community radio stations we support.

This story was produced by our senior producer, Darshan Moodley.

Joe Jackson is our managing producer.

Rob Rosenthal and I edited this podcast.

Music by Kamani Sambu at Edible Audio in Cape Town.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Sound engineering by Joe Jackson and Mike Rehfeldt.

This episode and the work of Radio Workshop

would not be possible without the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies,

the African Climate Foundation,

the Climate Emergency Collaboration Group,

and the Earth Journalism Network.

Find out more about what we do

and support our work on radioworkshop.org.

and edited by Jenny Schmidt.

If you would like to see photos from this story,

you can find them at npr.org backslash upfirst.

Our team includes Liana Simstrom and Justine Yan.

Irene Noguchi is our executive producer.

If you like the deep dives you get on The Sunday Story,

check out NPR's Consider This podcast.

This week, Consider This brings you a look at what the doubling

of child poverty rates means for families already struggling,

a doctor's take on a new booster and a new era for COVID,

and what it means for the world now that the war in Ukraine

has brought North Korea and Russia closer.

Listen to Consider This wherever you get your podcasts.

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Send us an email at thesundaystoryatnpr.org.

I'm Aisha Roscoe. Up First is back tomorrow

with all the news you need to start your week.

Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.