Consigning coal to history: Progress or just all talk? A post COP26 analysis.
Introduction
The 26th conference of parties, COP26 climate summit was one of the last chances to set the world on the right path of meeting the goals of the Paris agreement, ultimately keeping 1.5°C alive. There were some positive outcomes of this COP such as the deforestation pledge where 130 countries have pledged to end deforestation by 2030, the methane reduction pledge which calls on a 30% reduction of methane emissions by 2030 compared to 2020 levels, and the collaboration between the US and China, the world’s largest GHG emitters to reduce their emissions by 2030. However, despite some positive historical pledges and agreements, this COP was deemed unsuccessful by many. As part of my masters program, MScCCAFS, I have chosen to write this blog about the topic of consigning coal to history as it was a topic that created a lot of momentum, but also controversy at this year’s COP.
Why coal?
“European wealth was built on coal, European death will also be built on coal” Frans Timmerman, the EU climate chief told the hall at the concluding ceremony of COP26. Many developed countries built their economies on “dirty, sooty, toxic coal” (Fallows 2010) as it provided a cheap source of energy for more than a century. Coal produces mass amounts of carbon dioxide along with other harmful byproducts such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ash, uranium, thorium, and mercury making it the dirtiest fossil fuel having severe impacts on human health and the environment. Burning of coal has been responsible for acid rain, atmospheric pollution, human fatalities along with coronary and respiratory diseases (Stracher and Taylor 2004). We need to leave coal in the ground and phase out coal powered energy which is factually required to remain within the 1.5°C threshold.
Some positive pledges
Energy day at COP26 saw some positive progress being made towards consigning coal to history. For the first time ever an end date was put on fossil fuel finance, specifically coal. On this day, 23 countries made new commitments to phase out coal, including Chile, who updated their coal phase out date from 2040 to 2030 along with other countries such as Vietnam, Ukraine and Croatia making new, more ambitious coal phase out targets. 28 members signed up for the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which is the world’s largest alliances to end eliminate fossil fuels. 20 new countries including Vietnam, Morocco and Poland have agreed to halt the construction of new coal power plants strengthening the ‘No New Coal Power Plants Compact” which was an initiative launched in September set up by a diverse group of developed and developing countries to end new coal power generation. And a group of 25 countries, banks and financial institutes agreed to end the funding of unbated coal. Other alliances were also formed at COP26, a major one being the international partnership between France, Germany, the UK, US, EU and South Africa to help decarbonize South Africa’s economy. This partnership will mobilize $8.5 billion of financing to help south Africa move from coal powered energy and accelerate its just transition to a greener economy.
A controversial last-minute change
Although there was momentum towards eliminating coal throughout COP, there were some major setbacks. Some of the coal dependent countries such as the US, China and India did not initially sign the pledge to phase out coal use on energy day. Furthermore, Poland, after committing to eliminating coal by 2030, reversed its pledge just hours after signing returning to its original phase out year of 2049. One of the major controversies of this year’s COP came at its final hours. At the conclusion of the UN climate talks, which was held almost 24 hours after the scheduled finishing time, a last-minute change in the language of the Glasgow Climate Pact prompted angry responses amongst the delegates. The previous draft that was announced by the COP president Alok Sharma called upon parties to adopt policies that would transition toward clean energy and accelerate “efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. However, in a last minute intervention, the Indian environment minister proposes to “phase down unabated coal power” instead of “phasing out”.
However, this wasn’t the only time the text was watered down. The original text called upon countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel” The addition of “unabated”, allows countries to still use coal power but with a carbon capture system in place and inclusion of “inefficient” would still allow countries to retain subsidies for the poor further slowing down the process of the coal exit.
A non-inclusive and non- transparent process
The watered down, revised version of the proposal was reluctantly accepted amongst the delegates with many of them expressing their frustration with the process. Switzerland was the first to express their “profound disappointment” that the language had been “further watered down as the result of an untransparent process” claiming that decision would not only bring us further away from 1.5°C but would also make it much more difficult to reach. Switzerland received a well-deserved, lengthy round of applause for their intervention. Countries also expressed their deep disappointment about the process with Liechtenstein stating “small countries were not equally represented in the bilateral consultation with the COP presidency” followed by Mexico claiming they were “side-lined in a non-inclusive and non-transparent process”. Fiji, the Marshall islands, Antigua and Barbuda also expressed their disappointment in the change of language of which they were not made aware of. Concluding the ceremony, Alok Sharma made a genuine apology for how the process unfolded but claims that it was vital “to protect the package” . COP 26 began with hope for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and staying within the 1.5°C threshold but ended with an apology.
The diluted version of the text basically gives coal dependent countries like China, India, and Indonesia the go-ahead to continue with coal powered projects. With no deadline set, it leaves us to question whether the new climate pact will have any influence on the behavior of these high emitting countries. As India was the country to read out the proposal, it seemed like they could solely alter the language of the text. However, India claims that the objections to the phrase “phasing out” was made in consensus with other coal dependent countries such as Brazil, China, South Africa, Australia, and Indonesia. India also defends the changing of the language with Bhupendra Yadav, the environment minister for India stating, “you must make allowances for the vulnerable people in society” and that “developing countries have a right to their fair share of the global carbon budget”. In line with principles of equity, this does seem fair as India has not contributed largely to the global carbon budget in the past.
Moving forward
There are highly polarized opinions on the success of the Glasgow climate pact. Some see this as a breakthrough as it is the first time in history that fossil fuels, precisely coal are mentioned in the document for the Paris Agreement rulebook. The UK business and energy secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng claims that “the end of coal is in sight”. However, on the other hand many critics and activists claim that not enough is being done and the pledge “still falls well short of the ambition needed on fossil fuels in this critical decade” as stated by Juan Pablo Osornio, the head of Greenpeace’s delegation.
For countries to prove their will to change, phasing down and phasing out of coal power needs to be put into policies, and implemented immediately to reduce emissions. Financial support to coal powered projects need to be halted and the building or expanding of any coal powered plants needs to be ended. Renewable energy needs to be scaled up at a huge scale. Currently India is one of the leading countries in renewable energy, however there increase in coal powered energy in 2021 is expected to be three times that of renewable energy (IEA, 2021) revealing the high levels of scaling up that is needed to eliminate coal power. However it is not enough to just move from coal to green energy, models of just transitions need to be built and more alliances, such as the South African alliance need to be established to make this happen.
The signing of the Glasgow climate pact reveals that countries are committed to tackling climate change, and the success of this COP will be determined in what happens in the next year and whether the commitments made were all ‘blah, blah blah” as Greta Thunberg describes it. Following on from the Paris Agreement, countries are required to create new, more ambitious NDC’s every five years. However, a successful outcome of COP26 states that countries need to come back next year with more ambitious NDC’s to reduce near term emissions by 2030. Current emissions pledges do not add up to anywhere near the goal of 1.5°C. COP president Alok Sharma claims that 1.5°C is alive, “but its pulse is weak”. We must live in hope that countries will bring more to the table next year at COP27 in Egypt with updated and more ambitious NDC’s.
To find out more about how Europe is working to consign coal to history have a look at this website https://beyond-coal.eu/
References:
- Fallows, J. (2010). “Dirty coal, clean future.” The Atlantic 306(4): 64-78.
- Stracher, G. B. and T. P. Taylor (2004). “Coal fires burning out of control around the world: thermodynamic recipe for environmental catastrophe.” International Journal of Coal Geology 59(1-2): 7-17.
- https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2021