South Africa is asserting its sovereign right to chart its own energy future, insisting that coal — with two centuries of reserves and deep roots in employment and power generation — cannot be abandoned on timelines written by wealthier nations. Minister Gwede Mantashe frames the country's path not as a refusal to change, but as a managed transition that refuses to treat economic survival and environmental progress as mutually exclusive. In doing so, South Africa joins a growing chorus of developing nations asking the world to reckon with the uneven burdens of decarbonization — and betting, pe