Fossil fuel future? Mantashe's optimism for coal faces unyielding climate challenges ahead

Minerals Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe flew his fossil fuel colours on Monday, 3 February 2025. 

“If you want coal, we will give you coal, and King Coal is back,” Mantashe said in his keynote address to the Investing in African Mining Indaba. 

Mantashe, a former coal miner, has long been a booster of the fossil fuel and has been nicknamed “Old King Coal” himself. 

But is “King Coal” really back? 

The short answer is — no.

“The long-term outlook for coal remains in decline but its timing and speed are closely tied to the progress on climate actions. The global coal demand is projected to drop to 3.2Gtce in 2050, replaced by the growth of renewable energy capacity, which will, in turn, increase the need for critical minerals,” consultancy firm BDO said in its Annual Mining Report 2025. 

“The combined market value of key energy transition minerals is estimated to grow more than twofold by 2040 in climate-driven scenarios and exceed revenue from the production of coal.” 

Writing on the wall

At a regional level, coal is also on a downhill slide in Africa. 

“By the end of the decade, coal output in Africa is projected to decline gradually due to a deliberate decrease in investments and new projects, given the climate change focus,” the BDO report said. 

The writing for coal has been on the wall for years now. 

Its undeniable links to CO2 emissions and climate change have soured investor perceptions toward it, and a swelling number of banks will not provide finance for new coal projects. 

This will slowly deprive coal of the capital it needs, and while the pace of its decline remains unclear, its trajectory is clearly one way. 

When qu estioned about the possibility of a new coal power station, Mantashe responded with: "I can't give the guarantee that there will be a power station tomorrow ... but developments in the world tell me that we can build a coal power station. For example, our experience  of the carbon capture mitigation and storage in Leandra gives us leeway to actually test the effectiveness of the technology to reduce carbon emissions, and in that way we will be able to build the coal power station that is linked to the CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage), and actually deal with carbon capture and also build a power station. I am giving a generalised answer. Whether we will build a coal power station, I don't know."

Mantashe also said that obituaries of coal were premature. But it seems that proclamations of King Coal ascending the throne again are premature. DM