As a global push to abandon coal and other fossil fuels accelerates, Zimbabwe is moving in the opposite direction.

The southern African nation is opening new coal mines to supply coal for steel production and building coal power plants to meet its energy needs, with private investors - mostly based in China - investing up to $1 billion.

"In terms of development, we really need power," said Richard Moyo, minister of state for Matabeleland North province, where the coal projects in the northwest district of Hwange are located.

But climate change activists say the move into coal will fuel higher carbon emissions and the more extreme weather - including stronger droughts and storms - that is increasingly devastating the country.

"Zimbabwe can't be going back to coal as if we were in 1985 or 1977, while the whole world is now divesting," Khumbulani Maphosa, head of the Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights, told our correspondent Lungelo Ndhlovu.

As climate-changing emissions continue to increase, despite efforts to slash them, Zimbabwe is hardly the only country at risk.

In the United States, wildfire-prone days are rising in regions well beyond long-suffering states like California, increasing the threat of worsening fires in states like Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, among others.

In many places now, "it's not a matter of if - it's a matter of when," said Kaitlyn Weber, a data analyst for Climate Central who grew up near where the California Caldor fire has roared through close to 200,000 acres of land, forcing evacuations in tourist areas near Lake Tahoe this week.

In South Africa, meanwhile, firefighting is proving a social equaliser, with people of all genders and races joining forces to combat worsening wildfires.

"It doesn't matter who is under the mask and the PPE - I realised that this is my tribe," said Slee Mbhele, a 40-year-old medical researcher who is part of Cape Town's Volunteer Wildfire Service.

"We see inequality all around us but when we fight the fire, we all pull our weight together. We are all the same," she said.

What might finally force an end to fossil-fuel use and rising emissions?

Extinction Rebellion climate change activists - who returned to mass non-violent demonstrations in London this month for the first time since the start of the pandemic - hope it can be the pressure created when thousands of people take to the streets.

"There are sections of our society that are delaying the mitigation of climate change for profit and there is nothing you can do, apart from get out on the streets and try to send a message that we are not going to tolerate that, in a peaceful way," said Paul Stephens, a Metropolitan Police detective sergeant-turned-activist.

See you next week!

Laurie

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