The Kids Are Alright, the #CancelCoal win shows youth will stop at nothing to protect the environment
By Luvo Mnyobe
Young people express their support for the Cancel Coal court case outside the High Court on 10 October 2024 in Pretoria, South Africa. Photo: Julia Evans
At the end of 2024, the youth won a major legal battle against the South African government. The case known as the #CancelCoal case was the first of its kind. Never before in South Africa had a climate-related case been led by youth activists who demanded that the government abandon its plans to build new coal-powered power plants for the generation of electricity.
Why the government would engage in a three year protracted battle with young people fighting to protect the environment defies both science and logic. The numbers clearly show that coal-fired power plants claim the lives of more than 2000 people in South Africa every year. Many of those people are children who are being suffocated by the harmful pollutants in communities like eMalahleni. The area in Mpumalanga is said to be the worst place to live in the world owing to damage it does to the lives and livelihoods of the people in the area.
The climate crisis is real and South Africans can no longer wish it away or turn a blind eye in hope that it will affect other countries. We no longer have the luxury of pointing out climate disasters in foreign lands as we too are victims of its wrath. As we speak parts of the Eastern Cape are mourning nearly 78 people who have been killed by flooding in parts of Mthatha. Earlier this year, Kwa Zulu-Natal was also suffering from flooding that claimed plenty of lives and displaced thousands, leaving many without a roof to cover their heads.
“We no longer have the luxury of pointing out climate disasters in foreign lands as we too are victims of its wrath. As we speak parts of the Eastern Cape are mourning nearly 78 people who have been killed by flooding in parts of Mthatha.”
Disasters owing to climate change are becoming more frequent and are increasingly moving closer to our homes. They leave behind devastating trail litter with death and destruction. At the centre of this crisis and directly impacted by the harm of this disaster, are children. For every climate disaster that takes place, plenty of children are left out of school and off the playground where they actually belong.
At the core of the #CancelCoal case was the recognition of the reality that our over-reliance on fossil fuels like coal is causing harm to the environment and the children who live in it. Section 24 of the constitution guarantees us all the right to a healthy environment, beyond just our generation, it stands for the right of future generations of children too!
Armed with research and the constitution in hand, the South African government continues to neglect the climate crisis and fails to put in environmental protections to protect the environment for future generations. This is despite the very evident harms caused by climate change in the lives of children throughout the country as well as neighbouring countries. But again, one doesn’t even need to look at neighbouring countries to understand the real threat of climate change in our lives. Look at the Eastern Cape and the devastation left by flooding just last week.
But even before the devastation of the flooding last week, we knew of the harm caused by fossils in the lives of children and their communities. That’s why even in our filing papers in the court, we used the real stories of young people and their communities testimonies as evidence of the very real harm resulting from South Africa’s over-reliance on coal.
“Both of my children have asthma and are often sick. Sometimes I have woken up in the night and found that my children couldn’t breathe properly. I do not want to see more coal mining or coal power stations where I live, and if I could live somewhere else I would, because here my children are suffering.”
Many of the stories we included in our case testified to the fact that there was very little economic benefit in their communities coming from coal mining and the reliance on fossil fuels.
“My 7-year-old daughter often misses school because she is too sick from the pollution. She is scared that she will be sick for the rest of her life and won't be able to go to school like other children," adds Mbali.
The crux of our legal argument was: no decisions about our future without us. We hurled the government to court to say that young people must be consulted in all the affairs of the country. And, the judge agreed.
South Africa is currently developing a new electricity plan for 2030 to 2050. The legal win has far-reaching implications for this process, including that the voices of children and youth groups must be heard in the planning process, and decision-makers need to show that the implications for health and children’s rights have been considered. Plus, given the scientific evidence on the impacts of coal, gas and climate change on fundamental rights, including the rights of the child, it will be extremely difficult for any fossil fuel power to meet this constitutional standard.
It can’t be that government officials nearing retirement solely make decisions about our future. Elderly politicians might be hogging powerful positions in the country, but there are instruments in place for the youth to hold them accountable when they make decisions that aren’t beneficial to us, but threaten our future in an effort to make millions in profits for corporations hellbent on milking the earth for everything it’s worth.
The government should not turn its back on its youth and sell their future to the fossil industry. Instead, they should consult young people in any decision they make about the real climate crisis we are living through today. If the government listens to young people, they will find that young people are acutely aware of the danger that will come with handing over our future to the destructive fossil industry. As we reflect on the generation of 1976, we should look at the #CancelCoal case with pride that young people stood by their convictions and challenged irrational government decisions that threaten to harm their future.
