Is Australia the Last Country Standing in Defence of Coal?

The Guardian - Bill McKibben

The OECD wants to phase out export credit agencies providing money for coal projects. Australia, almost alone, might stand in its way

‘Australia is trying to block the OECD initiative for obvious reasons: it wants to sell its coal abroad.’
Photograph: Meredith O'Shea for the Guardian

Australia finds itself in a funny position headed for the Paris climate talks. It’s one of the few nations on the planet desperately trying to stop the hands on the clock and keep the world as we know it chugging smokily along for a few more years.
Here’s the backdrop: 303 years after Thomas Newcomen invented the first useful steam engine (which burned coal to pump water out of ... coal mines), the black rock on which we built our prosperity is clearly on the decline.
China’s coal imports are down 30% this year, and it’s not because they’re mining more of their own: the country’s total coal consumption has dropped almost 6%. In the US, Peabody – one of the world’s largest coal miners – predicts a decrease of 100m tonnes in the coming year. Canada’s biggest coal miner, Teck, just wrote off $1.6bn (A$2.4bn) in value for its vast coal mines, acknowledging their product just isn’t worth as much any more.
Here’s the way to think about those trends: it’s good news. Because a planet that keeps burning coal is a planet that will keep burning up. Scientists have made it clear that if we’re to keep the earth below a 2 degree warming path we’ll need to keep almost all large coal deposits in the ground. This is entirely possible, since in the nick of time we’ve learned to make large quantities of cheap power from sun and wind. And so that’s where the attention of the planet is turning.
And here’s the rub: Australia, almost alone, is trying to keep us on a coal-fired track. Late last month – after two years of efforts led by President Obama and supported by activists and NGOs around the world – the US and Japan announced agreement on a plan to phase out coal-plant financing for credit export agencies.
Export credit agencies provide billions of dollars per year in subsidies for coal plants around the world, and until now Japan has been the worst – providing $20bn (A$28bn) in subsidies for its companies to build coal projects overseas over the past seven years. Yet after diplomatic pressure and a strong campaign in Japan and internationally, Japan has agreed to limit its support for coal plants overseas.
This comes on the heels of a joint agreement between the US and China in which China also agreed to limit public support for “projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally.” The OECD is set to make this standard policy for all of its export credit agencies.
In other words, if you want cash for your nation’s new coal plant, forget about it – many of the world’s governments will put their money elsewhere. Or that’s the plan if Australia doesn’t interfere. Australia, however, is eager to buck the trend. It’s trying to block the OECD initiative for obvious reasons: it wants to sell its coal abroad. And because the process is agreed upon by consensus, Australia could in fact block a deal that has been years in the making and would limit construction of new coal plants around the world.
This recalcitrance is dismaying, coming even after the ouster of Tony Abbott, which the rest of the planet hoped signalled some kind of return to an Australian belief in physics and chemistry. But the economic might of the coal barons seems as powerful in the new government as in the old, and Malcolm Turnbull is pushing the same sludgy arguments as his predecessor.
It’s a losing hand: the world’s investors are now pouring their money into green energy, where Australia could play a major role. And it will make Australia a pariah at the climate talks, where most nations now actually seem poised to do something. More to the point, if Australia succeeds in slowing down the transition even a few years, it (and everyone else) will pay for that greed with more bushfires and wilting summers, more eroding reefs and rising seas.
303 years later, the coal age is drawing to a close. But how fast that finish comes is a question of epic importance, and Australia holds some of the keys. 16 November marks the crucial OECD meeting where a decision on the coal ban could be made. So it’s time for Australia to face the future squarely.