With a 22% unemployment rate, South Africa's northern Limpopo province desperately needs jobs. But is building a new coal-powered industrial metal-working complex the right way to get them?

That's what residents are asking about the sprawling project backers say could produce tens of thousands of jobs - and critics charge could harm health in the region, while putting South Africa even further behind in meeting its net-zero emissions goal by 2050.

"Of course we want jobs... But we also want our health - if you are rich but you are sick, then what is the point?" one resident told our reporter Kim Harrisberg.

Getting rid of existing coal plants can also be a challenge for workers who depend on them - but some unusual places are showing the way forward.

In the remote "West End" towns of the U.S. state of Colorado, a coal plant that unexpectedly shut two years early left more than 75 jobs in the balance.

But putting together government and philanthropic money, and hiring someone to manage the transition, helped workers hold onto an income - even though the region's tax base is still struggling.

"It's not easy, but this is basic economic development work," said Wade Buchanan of the Colorado Office of Just Transition, the first such state-level agency focused on supporting green energy shifts that do not leave people behind.

In Brazil, meanwhile, lawmakers have cleared the way for the creation of a national system to pay farmers and local communities to protect natural habitats that provide key environmental services such as water and carbon storage.

President Jair Bolsonaro initially vetoed aspects of the Payments for Ecosystem Services plan that would ensure transparency and good governance, such as the establishment of a monitoring body and a register for payments.

But after those were reinstated, legislators backed the bill, bringing together the interests of green-minded and agribusiness-friendly congressmen, with indigenous people, traditional communities and farmers likely to benefit.

The country can now structure a market that compensates those managing efforts to protect nature and the climate, including generating carbon offsets for others seeking to reduce their own emissions to buy.

See you next week!

Laurie

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