A dismissed appeal can leave a victory in place without endorsing the reasoning behind it. That is the key nuance in the #CancelCoal case in South Africa. On 30 October 2026, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the Minister of Electricity and Energy concerning a programme for 1,500 megawatts of new coal-fired capacity. The cancellation ordered by the court of first instance remains in place. But the appeal court did not establish a general ban on coal.
The case, covered on 13 November by Mongabay, highlights a central challenge of the energy transition: how to balance security of supply, health protection and the legal soundness of decisions. To understand the outcome of the case, it is also necessary to look at what changed between the two judgments: the national electricity plan.
A specific programme, not the entire electricity fleet
The dispute stemmed from three related decisions: the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, a ministerial decision in 2020 and the approval of the national regulator, NERSA. Among other things, they provided for an additional 1,500 MW of coal-fired generation. This figure refers to planned generation capacity, not electricity already supplied or a volume of emissions avoided.
Three organisations brought the challenge: African Climate Alliance, Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action and groundWork. Their case concerned this new capacity. According to the Centre for Environmental Rights’ account of the case, their arguments linked the health and climate impacts of coal to the rights of present and future generations. The Centre represented the organisations: its account is that of a party to the case.
On 4 December 2024, the High Court of Pretoria declared the challenged decisions unlawful and invalid insofar as they provided for this new capacity. Consideration of health and children’s rights was at the heart of this first ruling.
In the meantime, the electricity framework changed
The ruling of 30 October 2026 focuses chiefly on a procedural question: would deciding the appeal still have any practical effect? The 2025 plan replaced the 2019 plan and no longer includes the disputed 1,500 MW of new coal-fired capacity.
The Court explains that overturning the original judgment would not, by itself, be enough to allow the capacity to be built. The Minister could not simply reuse the old decision to circumvent the framework now in force. A new decision and compliance with the corresponding legal requirements would be necessary.
The judges therefore dismissed the appeal because no practical effect had been demonstrated. They expressly state that their ruling should not be understood as endorsing the High Court’s decision on its merits. This distinction makes the outcome clear: the cancellation remains in place, without the higher court having upheld all the constitutional arguments made at first instance.
Children’s health remains at the heart of the campaign
In its statement dated 10 November, groundWork presents this outcome as a victory for future generations. The organisation acknowledges that the Court of Appeal did not examine the arguments on their merits and emphasises that the original judgment remains in place. The coalition wants energy choices to take account of the consequences for children and exposed communities.
Health and climate concerns come together in the campaign, but they do not measure the same thing. Air quality concerns exposure to pollutants; climate concerns, among other things, greenhouse gas emissions. An energy project can be considered from both perspectives, using different data, locations and time horizons. Bringing them together in a legal challenge does not mean they should not be distinguished in its assessment.
What the case shows from an ESG perspective
For an environmental, social and governance reading of a project—the three dimensions of ESG—this case offers a concrete example. The environmental dimension appears in the expected effects of electricity generation; the social dimension, in health and the place of affected populations; and governance, in the powers, procedures and justifications of decision-makers.
This approach calls for examining several documents rather than relying on a single announcement. A policy programme indicates a direction. An authorisation establishes what can be carried out within a given framework. A court ruling specifies what is challenged, overturned or left open. None of these documents replaces the others, and their dates affect how the case is understood.
This ruling does not establish a quantified account of the climate benefits achieved. More concretely, it shows why a project must be monitored over time: the planning framework can change while a case is under way. To assess the significance of a legal victory, the decisive question remains: exactly which decision was set aside, and on what grounds?
Archive photograph: Kusile power station, in Mpumalanga, on 17 June 2019. The facility illustrates South Africa’s electricity sector; it is not presented as a project cancelled in this case. JMK / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0.
