International trade association the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and nonprofit industry body the Global Wind Organisation (GWO) have signed a new two-year agreement to map out workforce training needs. This is being done in an effort to support the development of renewable energy by helping meet the demand for skilled workers who are needed to fill an increasing number of jobs that will be are being created during the global energy transition.
London-based sustainable power start-up Decarb.Earth aims to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reduce their emissions by aggregating SME decarbonisation projects on a platform to make investments by financiers more attractive. Large corporates may be able to tap funding from banks and other lenders to transform their energy sources, installing large-scale projects that have the potential to feed excess energy back into the grid for profit.
Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has moved to appeal parts of a landmark High Court judgment recognising air pollution as a violation of the Constitutional rights of citizens living in the Highveld Priority Area – a 31 000 km2 region that includes parts of Mpumalanga and Gauteng. The judgment was handed down by Judge Colleen Collis on March 18, after environmental justice group groundWork and Mpumalanga community organisation Vukani approached the court for an order stipulating that regulations be published to govern the air-quality improvements required to meet the goals of a plan published in 2012, yet never implemented.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) on April 9 said that, while it had published a consultation paper on municipal guideline increase and tariff benchmarks for public comment last week, it has decided to hold a public hearing at a later date to give stakeholders a further opportunity to engage on the issues raised in the consultation paper. The energy regulator initially opted not to hold public hearings on the key issues reflected in the consultation paper on the municipal guideline increase and tariff benchmarks, and followed a notice and comment process owing to the fact that, in the past, few to no presenters attended the public hearings to make representations to Nersa, it said.