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After 20, 25 years. you're going to have to close down. yes. the power crisis is the result of decades of mismanagement and massive corruption, criminal gangs ready to kill anyone who tries to stop the looting. i was shaking badly. i was literally lying like this and i started gasping for air. a mixture of cyanide and sodium arsenite. today, south africa still gets almost all its power from burning coal. it's a lethal addiction. it's killing us. this coal is killing us. the answer, to many, is a green revolution. but can western money and pressure help south africa embrace renewable energy?

But the just energy transition faces obstacles — lots of them. coal miners and their unions worry — with good reason — about their own jobs vanishing here in south africa. many people will lose theirjob. they'll lose their job if the coal was closed down, the coal mining stopped? we'd lose ourjob. and then, there's the politics. plenty of seniorfigures here are sceptical, to put it mildly, about the very idea of abandoning coal. you've been described as a coal fundamentalist, as a bit of a dinosaur, somebody who's obsessed with coal. yes, they call me all sorts of things. �*coal fundam...

You know, i'm talking about the hard economic reality. if we don't decarbonise, we're going to be shut out of the global trading system and we're going to lose massive amounts of jobs. but the just energy transition faces obstacles — lots of them. coal miners and their unions worry — with good reason — about their own jobs vanishing here in south africa. many people will lose theirjob. they'll lose their job if the coal was closed down, the coal mining stopped? we'd lose ourjob. and then, there's the politics. plenty of seniorfigures here are sceptical, to put it mildly, about the very i...

Do you think they will? they must. they must cancel the coal because it is killing us. this coal is killing us. these local campaigners say the government is putting jobs before health and ignoring court orders to enforce pollution standards. it's... sobs for me, i can't even explain the feeling inside. and it's been long talking about this but it doesn't come up into terms where i can swallow it. it's painful. so, nothing changes? nothing changes. but change might be coming.

Yeah. i'm just going to go around the corner here — is that 0k? we're told there are at least 60 so—called black sites in this region where coal is stolen or traded illegally. what's extraordinary is quite how brazen it is. it's happening every day out in the open, in daylight. even at night, we hear gunshots. gunshots. even they are fighting amongst themselves. the different gangs? yes. we need to be careful, then. yes. because there's so much money at stake... yes. ..that they will kill for it. they'll do that. let's see if we can try and talk to one of the truck drivers with the coal, o...