A CLOSE SHAVE OR TOO CLOSE TO CALL?

Mine closure and climate change

By Spencer Eckstein

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2021, reveals that the earth’s surface and ocean temperatures are the highest they’ve been since 1850, with the most radical increases occurring after the year 2000. The report goes on further to say that the only solution is drastically reducing CO2 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, and is unequivocal about the fact that human influence has led to this dire, and urgent, situation currently confronting the planet and humanity.

South Africa is the world’s 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely due to our fleet of coal-fired powered stations. As a result, policy documents have been created and stakeholder consultations held to discuss a just transition from coal. Furthermore, Cabinet approved South Africa’s National Determined Contributions to reducing greenhouse gasses and keeping emissions to a range of 350-420 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) by 2030, as part of the country’s submission to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), held from 31 October to 12 November 2021.

South Africa’s Cabinet also recently adopted the National Climate Change Bill.

Climate change can be regarded as a threat and as an opportunity, opening up varying avenues for the mining industry to respond.

Industry impacts and protecting value

• Increased rainfall and flooding as well as other adverse weather events can interrupt production, damage assets, disrupt transport and supply chains, result in excess soil erosion (affecting slope stability) and compromise employee safety.

• Drought will impact water availability and costs for activities such as refining and processing, amongst others.

• A rise in temperatures means increased pressure on energy sources and capacity to run operations and cool underground mines and surface facilities, leading to increased energy costs and possible energy rationing or load shedding.

Industry actions and creating value

• Investment in renewable energy technologies such as solar or wind and alternative fuels such as hydrogen, as both solutions and additional revenue streams.

• Technical innovations such as joint water reclamation projects with other industry players and regional water schemes between mining operations.

• Ensuring that mine closure planning becomes an intrinsic element of the entire project life cycle from study, design, build and operation, to closure and post-closure phases.

Ultimately, mines need to find a sustainability partner that can execute both strategy and compliance, underpinned by value engineering, clear objectives, measurable outcomes and solutionist thinking.