The country wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions without destroying livelihoods, but progress is slow and the residents of a small town are in the crosshairs Cooling towers and smokestacks still loom over the single-storey houses of Komati, but the winter sky is clear: smoke hasnt billowed from the vast concrete chimneys of the South African towns power station since it stopped burning coal in 2022, 61 years after its inauguration. While the state power company Eskom didnt fire any permanent employees, the end of coal generation and earlier job losses in nearby mines have fuelled doubts in the small town and wider coal belt that there are any benefits to South Africas just energy transition to renewable power.
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