“If you emit carbon, you’re taxed; if you try to be carbon free, you’re prevented by the regulators,” an observer lamented the other day.

Carbon tax uncertainty is halting meaningful investment and renewables red tape disallows companies from taking refuge in solar and wind power investment. Government should not be allowed to have it both ways.

Many mining companies wanting to establish 100 MW solar plants that produce electricity at a cost well below the Eskom tariff are told they may only build 10 MW solar plants.

In its mild first phase, carbon tax costs R517-million a year, with R5.5-billion a year Mineral Council South Africa’s estimate in its far tougher second phase, but high-carbon companies sprinting for cover are running smack bang into the regulatory brick wall that has been set up.

The upshot is that wealth consumption investment is up and wealth-creating investment is badly down.

There are very few who currently do not acknowledge the science of climate change and there is widespread support for South Africa’s commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

The 523% increase in the electricity price should ensure that the carbon tax is not allowed to fly solo but should be copiloted by those entering the inevitable space of green energy and the hydrogen economy.

Government must fling the regulatory renewables hurdles and Eskom must not stand in the way of dedicated private-sector mitigation of the climate crisis.

Red tape needs to be replaced by red-carpet treatment for those investing in green energy.

Former Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll was spot-on when she proclaimed at the United Nations Climate Change Convention’s seventeenth Conference of the Parties in Durban in 2011 that “hundreds of thousands” of new South African jobs were there for the taking if South Africa grasped the green energy opportunity.

That is even truer currently. South Africa could save hundreds of billions of rands by locally producing its own green hydrogen and not having to pay for imported oil, which is also a high- carbon generator.

The International Energy Agency has described 2019 as a year of “unprecedented momentum” for hydrogen, with 50 targets introduced globally to support its development.

Hydrogen has the potential to become a universal energy carrier, in the same way that oil is now, but without the environmental impact, which is a colossal global opportunity.

Let buses that use diesel switch to green hydrogen as the starting point. Going ‘green’ is a process that is fast becoming irreversible. South Africa has excellent sun and wind energy potential and is well placed to produce and export clean renewable hydrogen.

Come on, guys. Do the right thing for the good of the South African people.