Protesters at the COP3 in Bonn demand the complete phase-out of coal, a major contributor to carbon emissions. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
BONN, Nov 19 2017 (IPS)

As the summit of governments known as COP23 reached its conclusion in Bonn, Germany this week, two clear alliances have emerged in the global energy landscape.

One of them, the International Solar Alliance, was launched in Paris and is all set to become a legal entity. The other, an alliance to phase out coal, was announced on Dec. 16 in one of the biggest developments at COP23.“Phasing out coal power is good news for the climate, for our health and for our kids." --Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Jointly launched by Britain and Canada – both developed countries – the alliance already has 20 members, including Italy, France, Mexico, Norway, El Salvador and several U.S. states.

The International Solar Alliance, on the other hand, is led by India – an emerging economy. Forty-four countries have already joined this alliance, of which 16 have also ratified it. As a result, the alliance will come into force on Dec. 6.

New Emissions Data, New Alliances

The launch of the Global Alliance to Power Past Coal comes at a time when global carbon emissions are rising. Earlier in the week, the University of East Anglia and Global Carbon Project global emissions report showed a significant rise in global carbon emissions in 2017. The rise was observed after three years during which emissions figures were static. The biggest increase in carbon emissions occurred in China and India.

According to the report, Global CO2 emissions from all human activities are set to reach 41 billion tons (41 Gt CO2) by the end of 2017. Meanwhile emissions from fossil fuels are set to reach 37 Gt CO2 – a record high. China’s emissions are projected to grow by 3.5 percent while India’s emissions are projected to grow by 2 percent.

Launching the new alliance to phase out coal, Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said, “Phasing out coal power is good news for the climate, for our health and for our kids. Coal is literally choking our cities with close to a million dying every year from coal pollution. I am thrilled to see so much global momentum for the transition to clean energy – and this is only the beginning.”

The members of the new alliance, which aims to grow to 50 by the next COP in 2018, would not only phase out coal in their own countries by 2030 but also stop investing in coal-fired electricity both within and outside of their countries.

In sharp contrast, the members of the other alliance – the ISA – are reluctant to make any commitment to end coal energy before 2030. India, the leader of the alliance and a major coal producer, argues that coal is needed to end poverty and provide its poor citizens access to electricity. The country plans to produce 1.5 billion tons of coal by 2020 – double the amount it produces now.

“From the Indian perspective, let me make it very clear: there are development imperatives which as a country we need to fulfill. If you look at the total emissions, our contribution is miniscule. The point is, while this factor is spoken of, what is not spoken [about] is India’s extreme effort at trying to get energy much better,” said India’s Environment Secretary in a definite statement to the press.

“Today we are talking of producing 175 gigawatt of energy from renewable sources by 2022. Of that 120 GW will be from solar and the rest from biomass and others. Coal will continue to be used for some time, but we are continuously looking at alternative sources of energy.”

Anand Kumar, secretary at India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said that IAS’s core goal is to bring 121 countries on a single platform to explore ways to utilize and promote solar energy.

Besides production, the alliance would also focus on making solar energy cheaper and more accessible by garnering investment, bringing down the cost of solar cells, solar modules and solar storage.

The other prominent members of the alliance – China, Australia and New Zealand – still heavily invest in coal, even as they’re trying to produce more energy from renewable sources. At the COP, soon after the emissions report was presented by the University of East Anglia, Brazil, India, South Africa and China – known as the BASIC countries – released a joint statement reiterating their right to grow and asking the world to look at their emissions from the perspective of equity.

No coal vs no unabated coal

However, even as the new Global Alliance to Power Past Coal was announced, some of the statements raised doubts over whether the alliance only wanted to end unabated coal or coal in general.

Unabated coal refers to plants that are not fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which captures the harmful emissions that cause global warming.

According to Claire Perry, Minister for Climate Change and Industry in the UK and one of the alliance’s leaders, unabated coal was “the dirtiest” and her country would try to end using it. “The UK is committed to completely phasing out unabated coal-fire power generation no later than 2015 and we hope to inspire others to follow suit.”

Perry did not elaborate if the UK or the new alliance would still support use of abated or partially abated coal.

India, which otherwise refuses to end its use of coal, is also in favor of using partially abated or so-called “clean coal.” Says C K Mishra, “We are also looking at making use of better quality coals.”

Sitting on the Fence: Germany’s non-partisan status

Interestingly, Germany – which provided the venue for COP 23 – has not announced its intention to join either of these alliances. This has been severely criticized by anti-coal activists who have accused Germany of having a double standard by organizing the climate conference while not taking a strong step on either ending coal or shifting to renewable energy.

On Nov. 15, as Angela Merkel reached the COP to address the parties, the activists laid out a red banner that read “keep it in the ground” for the chancellor to walk on.

“We want no coal. We want no dirty power,” said one of the activists who was not allowed inside the conference.

The rule affects about 600 U.S. power plants, the majority of which are fueled by coal. Credit: Bigstock

By Kitty Stapp
NEW YORK, Jun 29 2015 (IPS)

In a setback to the Barack Obama administration’s clean energy plans just five months ahead of a critical climate change summit in Paris this December, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday blocked an initiative to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

In a five-four decision, the majority of the sharply divided court declared that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had failed to take into account the high costs its rules would impose.

The new rules had been challenged by industry groups and 21 Republican-led states in which hundreds of the older plants are operating.

“One would not say that it is even rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits,” Justice Antonin Scalia said from the bench. “No regulation is ‘appropriate’ if it does significantly more harm than good.”

Long stymied by the U.S. Congress on issues related to climate change, Obama has tried to circumvent Republican lawmakers by offering dozens of regulatory tweaks and targets that his administration could implement without Congressional approval.

Last June, Obama said the new measures would get the United States back on track to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The president originally set this goal three years before, but Congress failed to institute policies that that could allow for such a decrease.

The centrepiece of the plan was a crackdown on carbon pollution from power plants, both planned and existing. In the United States, power plants are responsible for some 40 percent of carbon emissions.

“We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulphur and arsenic in our air or our water, but power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free,” the president stated. “That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop.”

Much of Obama’s vision revolved around the ability of the EPA to enforce regulations under a key piece of decades-old legislation known as the Clean Air Act.

Under Monday’s Supreme  Court ruling, the EPA’s rule will stay in effect for now, but a final decision has been kicked down to the DC Circuit Court with instructions to consider costs in the initial stage of implementation.

While many newer power plants have technology to curb toxic releases, the rules target plants that still do not capture those emissions. They affect about 600 U.S. power plants, the majority of which are fueled by coal.

“The Court has sided with the Dirty Delinquents  – the small percentage of coal-fired plants that haven’t cleaned up – and against the majority that are already protecting our children from mercury and other toxic pollutants,” said Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp in a statement.

“It’s critically important for our nation that these life-saving protections remain in place while EPA responds to the Court’s decision, and EDF will focus its efforts on ensuring these safeguards are intact.”

Earthjustice DC Senior Associate Attorney Neil Gormley, whose group filed a brief in support of the EPA, said the court’s ruling “doesn’t change EPA’s authority to protect the public from toxic air pollution.”

“It just gives the agency another hoop to jump through. Now EPA should act quickly to finalise these crucial health protections,” Gormley said.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Photo courtesy of FoEI

By Dipti Bhatnagar
LIMA, Dec 3 2014 (IPS)

World governments gathered in Lima, Peru for the latest round of U.N. climate negotiations should have finance on their mind.

Making a just transition to a climate-safe future means helping developing countries to deal with damage from climate change, equipping them with the technology and skills to adapt to new circumstances, and to continue to develop on their own paths in the face of the climate crisis.The GCF still suffers from dismally low finance pledges compared to what is really needed to stop the climate crisis. The lack of rules for what constitutes as climate finance is the most worrying.

This is the repayment of the ‘climate debt’. All this requires money – money which developed countries, as the largest historical contributors to climate change – should provide. Some countries have already made announcements about the finance they are contributing.

But guess what? Some of this funding is being spent on projects which worsen and compound the climate crisis.

Let’s take the Cirebon power plant in Indonesia as an example. By some truly confusing logic, this pollution-belching coal-fired plant counts as part of Japan’s efforts to combat climate change. Why? Because Cirebon and two others like it in Indonesia were funded by Japan using climate finance funds, according to a Dec. 1 report by the Associated Press.

In other words, Japan financed a coal-fired power plant in a developing country using money that was supposed to help developing countries tackle climate change. The flimsy reasoning behind this claim is the idea that because this plant uses newer, more expensive technology than Indonesia would have afforded alone, the emissions are somehow ‘cleaner’.

Coal is by far the carbon heaviest fossil fuel, posing multiple dangers to the environment, atmosphere and human health. The Associated Press goes on to say “Villagers nearby also complain that the coal plant is damaging the local environment, and that stocks of fish, shrimp and green mussels have dwindled.”

Friends of the Earth Indonesia/WALHI has been campaigning against these plants, and condemning the warped thinking that this plant is marginally better than some hypothetical dirtier plant. It is dirty and it contributes to climate change and wrecks local livelihoods. Financing should not go to dirty energy.  Simple as that.

Japan plans to finance more of these projects in other parts of the world. Japan’s dirty energy corps seems to have done an impressive job of convincing the government that financing their polluting activities is actually helpful for developing countries.

Friends of the Earth Japan is also campaigning on this issue at home, pressuring the Japanese government to be more responsible with their financing and not fund dirty energy.

The lack of coherent rules defining proper  climate finance is very worrying. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has been set up to manage the transfer of much needed finance from developed to developing countries.

But the GCF still suffers from dismally low finance pledges compared to what is really needed to stop the climate crisis. The lack of rules for what constitutes as climate finance is the most worrying.

In a letter sent to the GCF in May 2014, social movements and civil society organisations, mostly from the Global South, urged that dirty energy be excluded from the GCF funding list and stressed the importance of real climate finance.

“The Green Climate Fund is of vital concern for us, as the mobilization of unprecedented levels of finance is urgently needed as part of an immediate as well as strategic response to the climate crisis. We urge you to make it an explicit policy that GCF funds not be used for financing fossil fuel and other harmful energy projects. We note with grave concern and alarm how other international financial institutions have been financing these types of projects under their ‘climate’ and ‘clean energy’ programs,” the letter said.

Yet the atmosphere at the climate talks in Lima, and in much of the reporting on the talks so far, is shockingly optimistic. The recently announced US-China deal has been celebrated by many, but the deal is hollow. It provides paltry insufficient, non-binding pledges to reduce emissions that are completly out of sync with what scientists tell us is needed to stop catastrophic climate change.

As long as deals and promises are made more for their symbolic nature than for their actual substance, we will continue to undermine real climate action and we will miss real opportunities to overcome the climate crisis and create a just and secure future for everyone.

Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland compared the lack of a regulatory framework with binding emissions targets and meaningful financial commitments to the ‘Wild West’, where countries are free to reduce or not to reduce emissions and to finance polluting activities in the pursuit of profit, as if our planet was not experiencing a grave start of a massive climate crisis.

Worse than the empty efforts of some rich countries is the absence of meaningful oversight of climate finance. Without adopting a shared understanding that climate finance is to help developing countries implement renewable, community-owned energy and to tackle climate change, and without clear guidelines on how the money should be used, we will continue to see half-hearted measures at best and countries exploiting the crisis for their own profit.

“Climate finance is such a mess. It needs to get straightened out,” said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth U.S. “It would be such a shame if those resources went to fossil fuel-based technologies. It would be counterproductive.”

Not only should this round of U.N. climate talks emphatically refute fossil fuels and explicitly rule out any further use of climate funding for dirty energy projects, but they should also adopt real, meaningful clean energy solutions.

The GCF should be funding energy transformation ideas such as the Global feed in Tariff (GfiT), which would subsidise renewable energy until such time as it becomes cheaper than fossil fuel energy through wider adoption and improvements in technology.

Within the U.N., rich developed countries must meet their historical responsibility by committing to urgent and deep emissions cuts in line with science and equity and without false solutions such as carbon trading, offsetting and other loopholes.

They must also repay their climate debt to poorer countries in the developing world so that they too can tackle climate change. This means transferring adequate public finance, technology and capacity to developing countries so that they too can build low carbon and truly sustainable societies, adapt to climate change already occurring and receive compensation for irreparable loss and damage.

But the U.N. talks are heading in the wrong direction, with weak voluntary non-binding pledges and pitiful finance pledges from developed countries, with huge reliance on false solutions like carbon trading and REDD.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Estimates suggest that Pakistan can generate around 1,1000 megawatts of electricity through solar and wind sources. Credit: WWF-Pakistan

By Farrukh Zaman and Chaitanya Kumar
KARACHI/NEW DELHI, Jun 1 2014 (IPS)

Mukhtar Ali is one of the many Pakistanis who are furious at politicians and authorities for failing to provide citizens with a regular supply of electricity during the smouldering summer months.

Life for the 42-year-old shopkeeper in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial hub, becomes especially unbearable when his business suffers due to load-shedding (rolling power cuts), or when he tries to sleep at night without a fan to cool him.

“This has been going on for years now,” Mukhtar told IPS. “We have been promised on several occasions by previous governments and even the present one that the energy crisis will be resolved in their tenure. But so far, things remain the same. I cannot even express my anger towards such hypocrisy.”

“Pakistan has been [badly] impacted by extreme weather disasters due to climate change [...]. We will only be adding to the problem if we expanded the use of coal and other fossil fuels.” -- Umama Binte Azhar, a sustainability expert at Brunel University
The ongoing energy crisis is certainly one of the greatest challenges that Pakistan is facing. The current power shortage in the country has been estimated to be around 6,000 megawatts, with the industrial sector being hit the hardest due to the shortfall.

Since 2011, almost 70 percent of industries have either shut down or have outsourced their operations to countries like Malaysia and Bangladesh. The Economic Survey of Pakistan notes that during 2011-2012 around 4.8 billion dollars, or two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) was lost due to power outages.

As a result, after years of massive blackouts that have plagued the country and destroyed much of its industrial sector, energy-starved Pakistan is setting its eyes on a coal-fired future. Recent discoveries of massive ‘low’ and ‘low to medium’-quality coal reserves in the southern part of the country have led many to endorse the decision to compensate for the current energy deficit by setting up coal-fired power plants.

An economic and environmental nightmare

Regarded as the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, coal is considered one of the largest contributors of carbon emissions that are causing rapid climate change. Around the world, coal has been the cause of several social and environmental conflicts, and has resulted in massive human displacements in recent history.

Additionally, coal-related industries are responsible for creating water scarcity and food risks in countries where the use of water for energy is prioritised over agriculture and food production. This has led many experts and specialists in the energy and climate sectors to show reservations towards coal-fired power plants.

“Coal is exhaustive and an unsustainable resource for Pakistan,” Umama Binte Azhar, a sustainability expert at the London-based Brunel University, told IPS.

“Pakistan has been one of the worst impacted by extreme weather disasters due to climate change in recent years. We will only be adding to the problem if we expanded the use of coal and other fossil fuels.”

Despite this, the recent discovery of coal reserves in the Thar Desert in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province has sparked both domestic and international interest. For example, China is set to invest around 1.5 billion dollars in Thar Coal. Similarly, Burj Power, a UAE-based company, has signed a deal worth 700 million dollars to set up four coal plants at Port Qasim, near Karachi.

Many UK and Czech-based companies are also expected to make such investments in Pakistan for the same purpose. A recent agreement signed between the Pakistan government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) stipulated that the latter would provide 900 million dollars worth of assistance to help Pakistan set up a power project in Jamshoro, a district of the Sindh province.

An estimated four coal plants are poised to become operational by 2016 at various points around the country to generate electricity. What is alarming about this plan is that running the plants will require coal to be imported in huge quantities from countries like Indonesia and South Africa since most coal deposits in Pakistan have low energy density.

The operation will be extremely costly, and will hold Pakistan hostage to imports and international markets for many years to come. Neighbouring India is learning this lesson the hard way, with high import prices of coal making thermal power plants economically infeasible without massive government bailouts and soaring energy prices to the end consumer.

Regional experiences

Pakistan is not the only country with plans to exploit coal for energy. Developing countries around the world and primarily South Asia are fixated on the notion that coal is cheap and therefore a viable source of energy for growing the economy and fighting poverty.

With almost 450 coal-fired power plants proposed to come up in the region, India’s hunger for this dirty fuel is rising. But the truth is that a majority of these plants will likely fail to come into being, as the last few years have shown.

Domestic coal production has hit a plateau as poor mining and transport infrastructure, as well as corruption scandals, have crippled Coal India Limited (CIL), the world’s largest coal miner. Efforts are underway to import coal from countries like Indonesia and Australia but rising coal prices have put a spanner in the industry’s works.

Over 30 power plants went on a distress sale last year as enthusiastic entrepreneurs built coal plants in haste but were unable to run them owing to massive coal shortages. This has become a recurring theme in India that is pushing coal-financing institutions to completely rethink their investment strategy.

Bangladesh is another example of where coal is being looked at as the panacea for poverty. But the recent eruption of public dissent against the proposed 1,320-MW Rampal power plant in the southwestern Khulna district – which is known in Bangladesh as the gateway to the ecologically sensitive tidal forest area called the Sunderbans – shows that the industry will not have it easy.

As coal plants begin competing for people’s need for land and negatively impacting agriculture, health and livelihoods, opposition for them will only rise as witnessed in pockets across the subcontinent.

Sri Lanka is steadily increasing its coal dependence as it projects 70 percent of its energy by 2025 to come from coal but that growth is mired in complex geopolitics that questions the primary motive behind coal expansion: is it to satisfy the capital interests of a few or the energy needs of the masses?

The story in Pakistan could turn out to be the same, as coal prices continue to head northwards and international financial institutions like the World Bank and the ADB grow increasingly wary of their investments in this fossil fuel.

Solving the crisis with renewables

Among the available alternatives, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and biomass have vast potential in Pakistan. Despite their high installation costs, renewable energy systems incur far fewer operational and maintenance expenses, making them highly profitable in the long run.

Globally, the cost of renewables has decreased drastically. Considering that the prices for solar panels have fallen from five dollars/watt to less than a dollar per watt in just a few years, solar energy has proven to be an affordable and practical option for Pakistan, especially since the country falls under a sun belt.

The wind corridor at Gharo-Keti Bunder in coastal Sindh is another potential source of power generation waiting to be fully explored. It has the potential to generate about 11,000 megawatts of electricity, according to a report published by the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

Regrettably, “inadequate investments, power tariffs, and institutional constraints have resulted in the dismal situation where renewable sources are not being fully tapped,” Asad Mahmood, the technical manager at the Energy Conservation Fund (ECF), told IPS.

Experts say Pakistan can avoid the trap that rapidly emerging economies have fallen into, and instead draw up a blueprint for large-scale decentralised renewable energy deployment. In a rapidly changing climate, nothing less would be acceptable.

(END)