A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

294 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradinganyway. Sasol’s coal mine in Sasolburg ‘reached the end of its economiclife in 2001,’ 145 and trucking in replacement coal from Secundawas not ‘economically sustainable’. 146 Yet the company insists that theobvious choice for a new feedstock source was not gas from Mozambiquebut rather digging a new coal strip mine near Sasolburg. Althoughthere was ‘public concern’ over this proposed mine, whichwould have been sited on the banks of the Vaal river, 147 as well as ‘adesire from Sasol and the South African government to reduce localair pollution’, the company insists that there was no incentive or legalobligation not to go with coal. 148 The pipeline option, on the otherhand, was blocked by ‘numerous and difficult-to-manage barriers’including capital costs, political instability, and fluctuating gas prices– all of which needed carbon finance to overcome.I guess that’s reasonable – if you think a fossil fuel company should be grantedcarbon credits at all.The only trouble is that Sasol’s claims are contradicted by several ofits own executives’ accounts of how the pipeline option was chosen.For example, at a June 2005 meeting of the South African NationalEnergy Association at the Siemens Headquarters in Sandton, outsideof Johannesburg, Sasol’s Natural Gas Supply Manager, Peter Geef,noted that the Mozambique pipeline had already been ‘completelypaid for’ and that there were no outstanding financial inputs. Uponbeing questioned about the CDM, Geef responded that ‘yes, we areindeed trying to get some carbon finance for this pipeline…you get alot of pay-back in terms of dollars per tonne’, but that ‘we would havedone this project anyway’. 149‘You shouldn’t be sellingoff your crown jewelsso the North can keeppolluting.’ 169Sheriene Rosenberg,SouthSouthNorth,South Africa, June 2005So essentially Sasol is asking for carbon fi nance not to do something it wouldnot have done otherwise, but as a bonus for what it has already done but justwished was more profi table.Exactly. Even Richard Worthington of the South African ClimateAction Network (SACAN), who supports carbon trading projects intheory, says that the project merely entrenches Sasol’s pipeline monopoly.He adds that the company’s quest for extra income from carboncredit sales ‘is just baseless greed’. 150What about the other South African projects you mentioned.Another South African landfill gas CDM project is located at theBellville South Waste Disposal (BSWD) dump in the north of CapeTown municipality. This project aims at capturing 70 per cent of thesite’s methane, instead of the current 30 per cent, which is merelyfl a r e d . 151 The methane would then be used as fuel by local industry.