{"id":15379,"date":"2021-11-18T13:48:29","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T13:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/?post_type=stories&p=15379"},"modified":"2024-09-14T07:44:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T07:44:21","slug":"21118-earthcrimes-update-limpopos-dirty-great-white-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/21118-earthcrimes-update-limpopos-dirty-great-white-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: #EarthCrimes \u2014 Limpopo\u2019s dirty great white elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did China\u2019s government just put a bullet in Limpopo\u2019s dirty great white elephant<\/span><\/a>? <\/span><\/p>\n

It seems likely.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) declared a 60 square-kilometer area in Limpopo would become the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The plan was for a host of China\u2019s state-owned companies to build R40-billion energy and metallurgical complex, including smelters and steel plants. <\/span><\/p>\n

The development <\/span>\u2014 <\/span>powered by a 3 000 MW coal power plant <\/span>\u2014 <\/span>would be incredibly polluting and would require vast amounts of water in a water-stressed region.<\/span><\/p>\n

*AmaBhungane dubbed the project \u201cLimpopo\u2019s dirty great white elephant\u201d in a four-part #EarthCrimes investigations. Read part 1<\/span><\/a><\/strong>, part 2<\/span><\/a><\/strong>, part 3<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and part 4<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

But recently, China\u2019s president Xi Jinping announced that China would no longer fund the construction of coal-fired power plants in other countries.<\/p>\n

Last month, environmental group Fossil Free South Africa wrote to China\u2019s ambassador to South Africa seeking clarity on whether this would affect the proposed development of the Musina-Makhado SEZ. <\/span><\/p>\n

This week, ambassador Chen Xiaodong responded, confirming China\u2019s commitment to \u201cnot build new coal-fired power projects abroad\u201d. (Read the letter here<\/span><\/a>.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Although the letter stops short of plainly saying that none of China\u2019s state-owned companies will be involved in the project, it has likely caused a fatal body-blow to the Musina-Makhado project. <\/span><\/p>\n

The 3 000MW coal power plant was supposed to developed by PowerChina International, a subsidiary of the state-owned PowerChina group. (The agreement can be read here<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter this week, China’s ambassador to SA, referred to his country’s commitment to \u201cnot build new coal-fired power projects abroad”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[200,792,339,335,793,185,447,794,795,796,337],"class_list":["post-15379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-china","tag-department-of-trade-and-industry","tag-dti","tag-earthcrimes","tag-fossil-free-south-africa","tag-limpopo","tag-limpopo-economic-development-agency","tag-musina-makhado-sez","tag-powerchina","tag-powerchina-international","tag-sez"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29939,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379\/revisions\/29939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}