Climate change catastrophe cannot be stopped if we continue to use coal

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Matthew Horwood / Getty Images
Aerial view of a coal mine open in Wales in November 2021
At the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change, diplomats put on paper for the first time the collective need to accelerate the removal of coal and fossil fuel subsidies in order to meet climate goals. draft statement was released on Wednesday.
Countries may continue to use coal at current levels or limit future warming to the Paris climate agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). It is impossible to do both. But this scientific reality has been an elephant for many years — until now.
“It’s significant,” said Helen Mountford, vice president of the World Resources Institute. he told reporters. “We’ve never had a text like that.”
However, this new statement is not definitive, has no timeline or other details, and comes with some obscure commitments from the country. This anti-coal disagreement captures the central tension highlighted in Glasgow’s climate talks: the significant differences between what countries need to do as the climate crisis escalates, what they will do in the future and what they really are. doing it now.
“We’ll see if that text sticks,” Mountford said later. “We are waiting. It is a very important and concrete action that countries can take to truly fulfill their commitments. ”
Outside of climate negotiations, protesters were encouraged to stay in that language. According to the Washington Post, they shouted: “‘Fossil fuels’ on paper now” and “Save in text”.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed disappointment with the negotiations on Thursday, saying that country level “Promises are gaps when the fossil fuel industry still receives trillions in subsidies, as measured by the IMF. Or when the country is still building coal plants.”
With current climate policies in place, the world is on the verge of warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius this century (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels. As well the most up-to-date narratives Current commitments to future climate action have put the world on the path of warming 1.8 degrees Celsius. This means that even if all countries keep their most ambitious promises — if they are a big one — we will exceed the main target in Paris by 0.3 degrees. It may seem a small difference, but science makes it clear that every tenth of a degree is disastrous for mankind: more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, and forest fires; raising sea levels further; and ultimately more suffering.
Science is also clear that coal is horrible for the climate. Coal is the most carbon-intensive source of energy About 40% Carbon emissions related to the use of fossil fuels in the world
That’s why more and more officials say quitting coal is one of the most important steps to take to tackle climate change. Last week, for example, Canadian Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said in Glasgow: “Ending coal emissions is one of the most important steps we need to take to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement and the 1.5 degree target.”
Christoph Soeder / Getty Images
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, speaks at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26)
Climate modeling results published last month The International Energy Agency has shown that there is no way to limit future global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, let alone 1.5 degrees Celsius, without reducing current coal use.
The IEA’s most aggressive emission reduction scenario limits heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius and sets a roadmap for achieving “zero net emissions” (when the balance of carbon going into the atmosphere is the same, through carbon capture, through plant life). , and other sources of removal). Called the Zero Net Emission or NZE scenario for 2050, it involves shutting down new coal-fired power plants and reducing emissions from about 2,100 gigawatts of power plants currently in operation.
“It’s completely gone from the energy sector,” IEA modeler Daniel Crow said about coal in that scenario. “The coal without Athens has completely disappeared.”
A very small amount of coal would remain, probably based on carbon capture and storage technology, to extract the carbon emissions that are generated directly from the atmosphere.
Pavel Mikheyev / Reuters
Coal-laden wagons have been seen at a train station in the town of Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan, on November 8, 2021.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol took this message to Glasgow at an event organized by the Powering Past Coal Alliance to end the use of coal by organizations launched in 2017. So far, they have 165 countries, regions, cities and companies signed. This includes the 28 new members announced at the ongoing climate conference.
In many cases, the participating countries have set deadlines for phasing out: Ukraine has committed to ending coal use by 2035, Croatia has set a deadline of 2033, and Estonia is already without coal.
“For our part, in the UK, we have reduced the use of coal for electricity to a whopping 2% of our total use,” said Alliance President Greg Hands and the UK Minister at the event. “And our energy mix will be completely gone by 2024.”
But to express how confused international coal policy is, on the same day a separate but overlapping coalition to end coal was launched in Glasgow. This second group signed a new “Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement, “committing, among other things, to” complete all investments in the creation of new coal energy domestically and internationally “and” to eliminate coal energy in major economies in the 2030s and worldwide in the 2040s. “
Catherine McKenna, a former Canadian Environment Minister who launched the Powering Past Coal Alliance, called for a second coalition to lower the limit on climate action: Powering Past Coal. all countries to phase out coal before 2040.
Enough with new initiatives, especially those that weaken the price of admission and amp; do nothing to reduce emissions. Countries need to work & fulfill their commitments (as ???????? is doing). No more tapes to appear. Only at the end of the race: 1.5 degrees. # COP26 https://t.co/fLZIpIwXWJ
Twitter: @cathmckenna / Via Twitter
One of the most significant signatories of the new declaration was Poland, a country that relies heavily on coal. Poland boasted one of the 25 largest GDPs in 2020. This led many to conclude that Poland, a major economy, wanted to stop the use of coal in the 2030s. But officials in the country quickly backed down, saying the country intended to phase out coal in the 2040s, perhaps until 2049.
South Korea, another major coal consumer, also signed a statement last week that apparently committed to abandoning coal by the end of the next decade. Since then, the country’s trade minister has withdrawn his commitment, issuing a statement: “We support accelerating the transition to clean energy, but we have never agreed on a date to move away from coal.”
Neither the US nor China, two of the world’s top coal producers, signed into a coalition. As a member of the Group of 20 or the G20, these countries have already agreed to stop funding coal projects this year.
Then this week, John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy for the climate, he told Bloomberg in an interview: “By 2030 in the United States, we won’t have coal.” The next day, on behalf of the US, he announced with China that both countries had it agreed together they reiterated their commitment to increase climate intention and stop supporting international coal projects. Although China agreed to “make efforts to accelerate” the coal phase, no date was given. The future of coal in the US was not mentioned at all.
UNFCCC
John Kerry at COP26, November 2, 2021
Even if more politicians are just beginning to shed light on the future of coal in a warmer world, it is already underway to move away from the dirtiest fossil fuels.
Take the US. According to Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign About 348 coal plants They have already retired in the U.S. or announced retirements in the last decade. This leaves about 182 factories across the country.
“This is many years ahead,” Cherelle Blazer, Sierra Club’s general manager, told BuzzFeed News. “As far as I know, there are no plans for new coal plants.”
Seth Feaster, an energy data analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, provided even more context for moving away from American coal. “Just 10 years ago it was the peak of the power we could generate from coal,” he explains. “That is, between 2011 and 2020, we withdrew almost a third of our coal capacity.”
Another third will retire in the next decade, Feaster added, leaving the U.S. with about two-thirds of its maximum coal capacity by 2030, and it expects that rapid decline to continue.
Despite all this Donald Trump was elected, he ran for president of the United States with the promise of ending the “war on coal” and his administration aggressively pushed back the rules of coal.
So does that make it clear that Kerry’s recently stated goal is to have no more coal in the U.S. by 2030? Eh, not completely. Feaster said it’s “still a pretty optimistic goal.”
Complicating matters is the fate of US President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate legislation at its core. Rebuild a Better Plan. The person with the greatest difficulty in achieving these new climate policies at the finish line is West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. personal fortune it is built of coal. It is now debating whether to introduce a tax incentive for technologies that capture carbon pollution it will keep the coal-fired power plants longer.
The closure of coal-fired power plants across the U.S. has reduced the country’s climate emissions. But after the coal, natural gas helped fill the gap. So as coal-related emissions fell, so did natural gas emissions. This type of energy switch will not stop the climate crisis.
“These countries that want to move away from coal should be very careful to switch to another fossil fuel to block emissions – gas – and focus on switching to renewable energy.” he warned María José de Villafranca, a climate policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute, this week.
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