A recent paper states eradicating global poverty is possible, but it’s a noble goal made more complex by climate change – and coal’s role in that.
Coal industry claims that it can lift people from poverty, and those of others stating a “strong moral case” for coal and referring to it as “nature’s gifts, is at best a mistake according to the “Beyond coal : Scaling up clean energy to fight global poverty” position paper.
The paper is a joint project between various poverty and development organisations; including the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) – an independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues.
“The evidence is clear: a lasting solution to poverty requires the world’s wealthiest economies to renounce coal, and we can and must end extreme poverty without the precipitous expansion of new coal power in developing ones,” says the paper.
The report states while some electricity-poor households may have the mains grid close by, mismanagement and connection costs deny them access. Even more electricity-poor households live far from the grid: 84% are in rural areas. Given these situations, renewables are cheapest and quickest way of reaching these people.
While some may link coal to prosperity, the examples given are perhaps a case of correlation not equaling causation. China’s rise has been attributed to coal, but two thirds of China’s reduction of extreme poverty was thanks to agricultural and macroeconomic policy changes before its coal-fired expansion in the 1990s.
Renewables can also provide better employment prospects. The renewable sector employed 8.1 million workers last year, compared to the 7 million employed to the World Coal Association’s own 2012 estimate.
Far from being a solution to poverty, coal could entrench it. Building just a third of the planned coal-fired power plants would also take the world past 2°C of warming, which would have a knock-on effect of pushing hundreds of millions into extreme poverty before the middle of the century.
The paper notes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths are caused through air pollution connected to coal in India and China each year.
The authors invoke World Bank President Jim Kim:
‘…if the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished … That would spell disaster for our planet.’
The paper echoes views in a report last year, which delved into massive negative impacts of coal on communities and how using it will do little to bring power to the estimated 1.3 billion people still living without electricity.
