The Sasol plant in Secunda.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/BloombergEnergy & Science
The World’s Biggest Emitter of Greenhouse Gases
The emissions from Sasol’s Secunda plant exceed the individual totals of more than 100 countries.
In a modest house on a dirt street in Embalenhle, South Africa, Dzimadzi Masilela sits in her living room and weeps. On the wall behind her is a picture of her only son, Liwa, dead at 44 after a lifetime of respiratory disease. Next door lives Rose Masondo, whose granddaughter, Mainita, died from asthma at just 10 years old.
Their lives played out in the shadow of Secunda, a vast coal-to-fuels and chemicals plant run by Sasol Ltd. that South African and international groups say is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from a single site.