The SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has called for coal-fired power stations to be phased out, after the release of a 10-year study finding that people living near them were 6% more likely to die than their peers elsewhere, or to suffer major health impacts.
The report by the SAMRC and Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) collected nearly 3m death certificates from 1997 to 2018 and compared them with air quality data nationwide.
It found higher birth defects and higher death rates among all ages in communities adjacent to the power stations – especially from cardiovascular and lung disease, reports Engineering News.
“Some recommendations are … that power stations could be decommissioned,” co-author Caradee Wright said, presenting the report’s findings in Pretoria.
Wright also called for more stringent enforcement of harmful emissions limits in South Africa’s coal belt, home to some 3.6 people.
Government officials and citizens are debating whether and how fast the country should embark on a partly donor-funded programme to switch to sun and wind energy from coal. The fossil fuel provides three quarters of the national power and employs 90 000 people in jobs unions are fighting hard to protect.
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