The big thermal coal companies have announced their exit from coal, the big banks have announced their exit from coal funding and some insurance companies are calling on coal mining companies to pay higher insurance premiums at insurance renewal time.

Moreover, some governments have reduced State support for coal.

But, despite all these actions, the coal business is still growing.

Last year, coal-fired electricity emitted a record volume of more than ten gigatons of carbon dioxide, with Asia accounting for the growth, says The Economist.

Coal demand grew in China last year, in spite of the strong steps that the Chinese government has been taking to limit pollution and support renewable sun and wind energy.

The same took place in India and in Vietnam: coal demand soared by close to 25%, The Economist adds.

South Africa’s initial steps into renewable energy won considerable global praise. But then the cleaner energy thrust lost momentum, despite the reiteration that renewables present a tremendous potential tailwind for this country’s economy.

Morally, it is incumbent on South Africa and the world to help to hold down global temperature rise, so it should be done even if the cost is higher than coal.

But the big bonus is renewables have ousted coal as the lowest-cost energy source and, on top of that, South Africa is in the hugely advantageous position of having superior sunshine, prime wind, adequate land resources and an abundance of platinum-group metals (PGMs).

As former Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll pointed out at the United Nations Climate Change Convention’s seventeenth Conference of the Parties, in Durban, as long ago as 2011, the window of opportunity is “wide open” for South Africa to create “hundreds of thousands of new jobs” and simultaneously obtain a source of clean zero-emission electricity for itself.

South Africa currently obtains an overwhelming percentage of its electricity from coal, which leaves all growth from now on open to renewables.

The production of ‘green’ hydrogen could oust the existing dirty hydrogen export market not only as an imperative climate change mitigatory strategy but also on pure economics. This market exceeds 60-million tonnes a year and its users are obliged to come clean to protect Mother Nature.

The very hot Northern Cape province, the export port at Coega, available land for spread photovoltaic panels and PGMs working as cathodes and anodes in electrolysers and fuel cells can turn seawater or the brackish water of the Karoo or acid mine drainage water into hydrogen and then the hydrogen into electricity for mobility, electrification and heat.

Trucks, buses, trains and ships can switch to hydrogen fuel cell mobility and even synthetic fuel producer Sasol could cease burning coal and use hydrogen to produce clean power fuels in internal-combustion-engine vehicles.

There is every reason why South Africa should seize this rare opportunity with both hands.