South Africa defends use of coal as it seeks progress on climate

Bloomberg

South Africa’s deputy energy minister expects the latest round of climate talks will make global markets cleaner starting next year and defended her nation’s coal use as a way to reduce poverty.
“With the Germans, they can say ‘We’re moving from driving a Corolla to a BMW,’ while we are still trying to get the bicycle,” said Thembisile Majola, in an interview in London. “They’re talking about different technologies, we’re talking about access.”
Her comments reflect a 30-year debate between rich and emerging economies that’s set to continue at COP24, the international climate conference in Katowice, Poland, in December. That meeting is meant to finalise the rules of the 2015 Paris climate deal while President Donald Trump is seeking to pull the US out of it. Meanwhile, economic costs and deaths from storms, floods, landslides and forest fires mount around the world.
Her nation hopes to attract about $25 billion of foreign investment in the next five years for its energy industry. The biggest opportunity is in networks, upgrading the country’s aging transmission and distribution systems. South Africa technically has enough power supply to match its demand, but the electrons are frequently not able to reach their destination because of the unreliable networks, so finance is needed.