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JAKARTA—Greenpeace on Thursday slammed CoalTrans, the
largest gathering of coal producers and users in Asia,
for promulgating the myth of “clean coal” and
aggressively pushing false “end-of-pipe” solutions that
will do little to avert catastrophic climate change.
Carbon
dioxide (CO2) emission from coal-fired plants is one of
the main contributors to the human-induced phenomenon of
climate change. The international environmental campaign
group calls on the world’s governments to instead join
the energy revolution fueled by renewable energy and
energy efficiency to ensure energy security and avoid
the dire impacts of climate change.
“Clean
coal and cheap coal are big industry lies. Coal carries
huge costs in the form of severe pollution, climate
change, and the displacement of local communities. Coal
is artificially cheap only because the great bulk of
these costs are passed on to taxpayers,” said Red
Constantino of Greenpeace International at a media
briefing in
Jakarta,
days after the coal group’s conference in Bali.
A recent
study by the BLCP coal plant (an Asian Development
Bank-financed coal plant in Thailand) showed just how
massive such costs are. The BLCP plant, which has begun
operating this year, will release nearly 12 million tons
of carbon dioxide annually for the next 25 years,
causing Thailand’s carbon emissions to rise by almost 6
percent per year.
According to ExternE, a European Commissioned study, the
external costs of the BLCP coal plant amounts to over
$1.6 billion annually, an amount that will be shouldered
not by the coal company but by Thai taxpayers.
The
global scientific community led by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fourth
Assessment findings this year that warn of catastrophic
consequences if global warming reaches 2°C. |
