Around 7,000 nautical miles from South Africa’s biggest coal exporting port, in the cold, murky waters of the North Sea, rusty bulk carriers weighing tens of thousands of tonnes are preparing to berth on the grey docks of Rotterdam to unload vast quantities of coal.
Critics claim these shipments contain ‘blood coal’, sourced from a South African supply network more opaque than the oceans it crosses to reach Europe’s power plants and smelters. This coal trade, they argue, leaves a devastating trail: human rights abuses, environmental pollution, job losses, and communities wracked with depression and high suicide rates.
While the EU has proudly pledged to help wean South Africa off its dependency on coal for both local energy and export wealth, European countries have quietly increased their own imports from the country dramatically. But while exports have been soaring, the EU admits that it doesn’t monitor whether the imported coal is ethically sourced.
Critics warn that Europe isn’t doing enough to ensure its energy needs aren’t leaving a trail of destruction. Jule Fink, from the German-based anti-coal and anti-nuclear alliance Ende Gelände, says Europe is propping up South Africa’s coal trade without proper checks on where the coal comes from.
‘What we know,’ Fink explains, ‘is that a lot of coal is shipped to Rotterdam, for example, where it changes ships or containers. Afterwards, it’s very hard to tell imports apart, and under which conditions they were mined. This is a huge problem because it means it’s very difficult to know what human rights violations and what violence is in the coal. Therefore, we have to assume that everything is “blood coal”. It is also a main tool by coal importers to not take responsibility for the destruction and violence they cause.’
Fink, whose organisation raised awareness of coal imports from mines where human rights violations have taken place, explained that tracking coal imports connected to abuses entering Europe is made very difficult because of the complexity of supply chains. She also points out that importing coal while funding decarbonization initiatives completely undermines the work to decarbonise South Africa. ‘You can’t pretend to be funding energy transitions on the one hand, while, at the same time, funding the coal sector. That is just completely contradictory’, she adds.
An EU official told iWatch Africa that ‘while there is a general direction from the European Commission to phase out coal whilst diversifying where to source it, it is individual companies and member states that decide for themselves in line with their respective needs,’ adding, ‘there are no specific provisions on coal or on ethical coal as such’.
The EU official followed on saying that the EU has adopted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, under which large companies ‘have an obligation to conduct due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and bring to an end human rights and environmental violations.’ However, the policy will only become law in 2027.
Taken together, these mixed signals suggest the EU has yet to fully align its climate ambitions with its trade practices—advocating for sustainability while continuing to import coal under unclear ethical standards.
The contradiction is especially evident in the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), launched in 2021 to help shift South Africa toward a greener, more sustainable energy path. Backed by the International Partners Group (IPG)—which includes France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and the EU—the South African JETP is supposed to serve as a pilot model for how developed nations can support developing countries in decarbonising through public and private investment. So far, international pledges to South Africa’s JETP total US$12.8 billion.
However, just months after the EU’s commitment to the JETP and supporting South Africa in a just phase-out of coal, Europe’s coal imports from South Africa increased eightfold, reaching 3.54 million tons by 2024 – a 77% increase over 2021, according to Reuters. Much of this renewed interest came after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the EU imposed sanctions on Russian coal and gas, causing European countries to turn to other coal suppliers, including South Africa.
In 2023, the Port of Rotterdam reported processing 23.1 million tonnes of coal, including 1.7 million tonnes from South Africa. Global vessel tracking data reveals a steady flow of dry bulk ships from South Africa’s largest coal port, Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal, to the Netherlands. In 2024, two years after the EU and IPG countries boldly announced the JETP partnership, Europe accounted for 9% of South African coal exports.
Paradoxically, key European importers of South Africa’s coal include some of JETP’s biggest donors, including the EU, Germany, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands, according to The Coal Trader, a platform that informs investors on the mining and coal sectors. The trade not only undermines the bloc’s JETP efforts but also connects its coal supply chains to a host of social and environmental issues.
In South Africa, it’s clear to see that the situation is becoming increasingly pressing. Leaving Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, you start to see the dark side effects of an economy dependent on coal. The highway stretches east into Mpumalanga, through informal settlements and toward coal country, where power stations spew smoke into skies tinged platinum gold. Roads are crowded with side-tipper trucks, their loads spilling coal onto the verges. The region suffers from pollution, health crises, and poverty. Dust hangs in the air, wildlife suffers, and communities face depression and high suicide rates.
iWatch spoke to people who said they have seen the supply chains being contaminated with illegal coal en route to places like Richards Bay. Sitting on a bench in the Khuthala community garden, Zethu Hlatshwayo, a former artisanal miner, locally called the zama zamas (those who take a chance), now spends his days planting vegetables to sell in the community.
Rubbing his hands together, he reflects on the dark side of mining in Mpumalanga—coal cartels, abandoned mines, and broken promises. Hlatshwayo says that it is not just mining giants like Glencore, Exxaro, Sasol, Seriti, and Thungela that supply Europe’s energy needs. There are also shady coal cartels operating in Mpumalanga. He mentions mines like Golfview, part of Anker group based in the Netherlands, where he used to work during his zama zama days.
‘These are zombie mines,” he explains, “owned by cartels who vanish when the police come. The ownership is always changing and unclear. They used to chase us as illegal miners, with the help of the police, while also mining illegally there. While working as a zama zama, clients often asked us to load trucks with coal for export. At one point, they asked us to load seven trucks with coal for export to Europe. They see coal mined by Zama Zamas as good for exports and very cheap.’
The devastation that is caused by mining is felt way beyond Khuthala community, it is prevalent across Mpumalanga. Phola is a town surrounded by mines that include an opencast mine owned by Seriti Resources that largely supplies European markets. The town is marred by unemployment and demonstrations for better rights, and seems abandoned by the outside world. Community areas are filled with garbage merging in towering piles, and locals say that there are issues with the water supply.
Air pollution is a daily reality for residents. The widespread smell of coal, particularly around Phola, is immediately noticeable upon entering the province. For Nonhlanhla Mabuza, an activist under Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), the constant exposure to coal dust has become part of daily life. “We are so used to coal that we cannot smell it anymore, but we see the coal dust everywhere in our houses”, says Mabuza.
Standing just two kilometers away from the KPSX project, Seriti’s new open-cast extension of the Klipspruit Colliery, Mabuza notes, “Blasting activities at the mine site happen almost every day, generating tremors and you can see clouds of smoke rising, polluting Phola’s atmosphere”, she says.
Another Phola resident, Nkosana Mavuso, a local youth activist who started the ‘MP Rise Podcast’ (MP for Mpumalanga), agrees to an interview in the back of our hire car, parked up in the crumbling centre of Phola. He confirms the high suicide rates, with one of his friends recently falling victim. ‘Poverty is the cause, and people here are not employed,’ he says.
Mavuso’s story is a stark insight into the reality of life in a coal town like Phola. Yet despite coal destructive impacts and the JETPs efforts, our analysis of Global Coal Mine Tracker data reveals that South Africa could even see a growth in coal mining activity, as of April 2024: 65 of South Africa’s 82 operating coal mines are located in Mpumalanga and there are 23 proposed mines – six of which are under construction. The proposed mines could add more than 62 million tonnes per annum to Mpumalanga’s production.
‘It’s a free-for-all at the moment’, said Angus Burns, a local activist who works for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). ‘Existing coal mines are a problem, but the real issue is the new ones being proposed. 2,500 permit mines pending’, he says.
Nowhere is this scramble for coal more evident than in the countries export ports. Soot-stained juggernauts loaded with coal for Europe grind to a halt along the N2 highway into Richard’s Bay, a once-idyllic fishing village and laid-back surf resort, creating a tailback of hundreds of articulated lorries for kilometres into the distance. Here, the once-green wildlife flanking the main road is ashen and obscured from sunlight, and those who sell bananas to the stranded truck drivers are forced to wrap clothes around their mouths to battle the coal dust.
South Africa’s economy is hooked on coal. According to the world bank coal rents made up 2.4 % of South Africa’s GDP. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy states that about 77 per cent of South Africa’s primary energy needs are provided by coal; and about 28 per cent of South Africa’s coal production is exported, mainly through the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, making South Africa the fourth-largest coal exporting country in the world.
The reminders of Johannesburg’s economic entrenchment in mining can be seen everywhere, from the glass iceberg that is the Illovo offices of energy company Seriti, to the yellow 125-tonne truck that stands as a monolithic public sculpture in Ferreirasdorp. Johannesburg’s province, the mining hub of Gauteng, is built on digging, with commercial mining taking hold 150 years ago, starting as a scattering of gold rush tents and evolving into a multi-billion-dollar industry. If the glittering office blocks and mining memorials are anything to go by, those who have profited don’t want you to forget where all that money came from.
Pao-Yu Oei, professor of Sustainable Energy Transition Economy at the European University of Flensburg, Germany, points out that for countries such as South Africa, the global phase-out of coal presents a twofold problem.
‘On the one hand, around 80% of electricity is still generated from mostly old and unreliable coal-fired power plants, which are reportedly falling apart, making a switch from coal to renewable energy necessary, but demanding lots of new investments. In addition, a high share of South Africa’s GDP is based on exporting coal; if importers stop buying South African coal, it would result in a loss of much-needed revenue for the country’, Says Oei.
He adds, ‘You would have to replace selling coal with selling different kinds of export products, and it’s not that easy for South Africa.’
To make things more difficult, coal is entwined in South Africa’s ruling party. The former coal miner and current Minerals and Petroleum Resources Minister, Gwede Mantashe, is a coal loyalist. According to reports for the Daily Maverick, Mantashe praised a long future for South African coal. ‘We are still mining coal aggressively everywhere where we find it. There is no limitation. Look at this mine, it has a 20-year life,’ Mantashe said in March 2025 at the opening of a new mine in Mpumalanga set to produce a million tonnes per annum. ‘Coal mining will be here in South Africa for about 200 years,’ the Daily Maverick quoted Mantashe as saying.
Mantashe’s remarks, the continued neglect and poverty found in coal mining regions, and the government’s recent extension of coal plant lifespans—along with exemptions from pollution laws—raises questions about the South African government’s commitments to JETP, the power of the South African coal lobby and the government’s ability to wean itself off coal. Meanwhile, the EU’s continued import of South African coal could not only undermine JETP targets, it also connects European markets to environmental and human rights disasters, a far cry from the JETP’s just transition rhetoric.
Africa Climate Alliance says ‘[the EU] needs to address the hypocrisy it perpetuates in which their actions tell a different story to their claims and promises’
‘These contradictory signals are terrible for the progress of a Just Transition Partnership and indicate that the EU is only using renewable energy finance as a neocolonial tactic while maintaining fossil fuels rather than an actual mutually-beneficial partnership,’ said a spokesperson for Africa Climate Alliance. ‘It stalls renewable energy expansion, increases ecological and social harm and goes against climate commitments in a world already facing escalating climate impacts.’
The IEA reports that global coal use was at an estimated 8.77 billion tonnes in 2024, the highest ever. With countries and corporations backtracking on their climate commitments, it’s an important time for the EU to deliver on its climate promises in a meaningful and inclusive way. However, it’s not just up to the EU and the IPG. For South Africa to deliver a just transition and a phase-out from coal, it must seriously look at its own economy, government and socioeconomic issues.
Report by Sakhile Dube, Oliver Stallwood and Jack Wolf.
This article was supported by Journalismfund Europe.