Along with 60 other Australians, mostly more eminent than me, I’ve signed an open letter to world leaders calling for a moratorium on new coal mines and coal mine expansions. The letter focuses particularly on Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine but it’s important to be clear that this is part of a global movement to stop new coal mines everywhere in the world.
The underlying reasoning isn’t spelt out but ought to be clear enough. If we are to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at 450 ppm or below, as the world’s leaders have already agreed we should, it is necessary for carbon dioxide emissions to peak soon, and decline to zero over the next 30 years or so. Given that burning coal creates major health hazards in addition to C02 emissions, coal burning needs to eliminated even more rapidly. That means first, that no new coal mine can expect to work for an operating life of more than 30 years, and second that any new coal mine must be offset be additional closures of existing coal mines. Once these factors are taken into account, it’s essentially impossible for new coal mines to make economic sense within the constraints imposed by a limited carbon budget. Certainly, that’s the case for Carmichael, which is a massive boondoggle keeping alive only in the hope of extracting some form of government assistance or compensation.
John Quiggin 
Haven’t you heard? “There is a strong moral case that clean Australian coal is a solution for billions of people in the developing world for whom coal can do a great deal to lift them from poverty.”
“Mostly more eminent than me” should go on the Testimonials sidebar.
Bonus points for ignoring the “.. than I” shibboleth of amateur grammar peeves.
Better and fairer – buy back lower grade coal deposits & sit on them.
The Guardian is conducting an international survey among their readers on this topic.
Malcolm Turnbull said that “if we don’t sell coal to them then someone else will”. Every criminal who sells dangerous products uses that argument.
On the eminence question, I think Prof. J.Q. achieves the median, if not the mean, in this group of eminent people so I am not sure that “mostly more eminent than me” is correct.
@Chris O’Neill
“clean Australian coal” An oxymoron spoken by a moron if they believe it
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, during a debate about Quebec separation
Most new coal mines involve capital costs on the order of a billion dollars with anticipated paybacks on the order of 10 years or more. Lately the groups capable of financing such investments seem very nervous indeed.
Terry Barnes’ argument in a nutshell is that;
” 1.3 billion people… live without access to electricity.
” 304 million people in India – the principal destination of any Adani coal mine – don’t have access to electricity, and hundreds of millions more have unreliable supplies.
” About three billion people cook and heat their homes burning biomass products including wood, animal dung and crop waste.
” 4.3 million people a year die prematurely from illnesses attributable to household air pollution caused by inefficient use of poor-quality fuels; and,
” The UN projects an additional 2.5 billion people will be added to the world’s urban population by 2050, with India expected to add 404 million.”
Apparently, the mere sending of coal to India (and Africa etc.) is going to fix all this and cause no unintended consequences. There is no mention of all the infrastructure programs that must go along with it. Apparently, there is no other way to address these problems according to implication. It’s a false dichotomy – send coal or fail to deal with the issue. Notice too how coal is considered “clean” not because of CCS but because it isn’t dung or biomass.
All the real indicators now are that solar power can address these issues more safely and more economically.
These efforts (like those of Terry Barnes’) are rearguard attempts to save stranded assets and stranded investments. These people have made bad investments and would inflict serious climate change on all rather than lose a dollar themselves.
@Ernestine Gross – are you able to link us? unable to find
Thank you, John!
More eminent than me too John. Spreading the message far and wide.
Are you sure he’s Australian? He sounds a lot like a US Republican, well not that bad but almost as gormless.
And the problem is?
Well it may cut down on compost I suppose but it sounds carbon neutral.
@jrkrideau
My guess is that some people count it as a problem that
@jrkrideau
In 1991, I overflew part of India in a passenger aircraft to land at New Delhi. My guess is we overflew the state of Uttar Pradeesh or maybe Madhya Pradesh before landing in New Delhi. From the height of the aircraft it looked like a wide plain or plateau, not sure which it was technically. Over the whole area which took I guess an hour or more to overfly there was a dense brown smog as far as one could see from altitude in any direction. I guess that’s the effect of x million cooking fires and x million vehicles, many of them inefficient diesels.
This article from 2014 is interesting. “New Delhi, the World’s Most Polluted City, Is Even More Polluted Than We Realized” – Time, World, India.
India has serious air pollution problems including from home fires. It is very clear however that coal is not the solution. Compare New Delhi to Beijing. We could say essentially Beijing is a test case for the coal and automobiles path of development. Has this worked to significantly de-pollute a modern Beijing not known for significant numbers of home cooking fires (so far as I know)? I think not. The coal path is patently not the correct answer. Beijing is the proof.
@Tom Swann
The link as requested: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/28/climate-change-what-are-you-doing-to-reduce-your-carbon-footprint
Tom Swann, my reply with the link supplied is in moderation. My attempt to provide the information in bits to be assembled failed.
@John Turner
A carbon-dioxymoron, even.
@Ikonoclast
Last time I was in New Delhi (2007), the air was like the fictional Los Angeles of Blade Runner.
@Tim Macknay
Mind you, Kolkata was even worse, if I recall correctly. The smog was so bad you couldn’t see the other side of the Hooghly River.
@Tim Macknay
I spent a couple of months there (Delhi) earlier in the year. On a good (windy) day, it’s reasonably clear, but on a bad day it’s a bit like a fog. The cars are very smoky and so are the street/home fires. Doesn’t help that a lot of the traffic is constantly stuck in gridlock too.
I don’t understand the logic of the open letter. I agree governments should not subsidise new coal mines. And coal miners should pay for all the health and climate change costs their mining and transport activities directly cause. And new mines should be forced to comply with extremely strict environmental safeguards. But if all of the above is done, why should the government interfere with a commercial decisionto to build a new coal mine? I think it is likely we have reached peak coal so it is likely that new coal mines will be loss making, but why should our government interfere to stop stupid rich people losing money on new coal mines.
@john goss The appeal to govts is logical as they represent the Crown, who “owns” all things beneath the soil and who construct laws regarding that ownership.
Miners negotiate directly with the Crown over access to minerals and the Mining Act trumps all other acts – landholders have little to no say unless they can muster sufficient political persuasion.
@john goss
For the reason that the AGW impetus is now so critical and dangerous all new coal mines must stopped immediately. Waiting for the invisible hand of the market to phase out coal use is a game we have played for the last 25 years. It hasn’t worked. By the time the market works, the relatively benign Holocene climate will be well and truly destroyed (at least for the purpose of supporting 7 billion humans and their economy).
Current indicators are that we are on track for climate catastrophe by 2036 to 2046. See Climate Code Red.
I accept there has been massive market failure in this area which is why all the government regulatory interventions I mentioned are necessary. But in our passion to achieve necessary changes we can sometimes choose blunt instruments which may have some negative consequences. A blanket ban on new mines and mine expansions may stop some new mines which are of net benefit eg a new open cut mine may be of net benefit to people and the planet if it results in the closure of a dangerous underground mine.
There are two problems with burning biomass for cooking: firstly, it’s dirty and inefficient, leading to smog problems and more importantly lots of smoke pollution /inside/ houses which is what kills people; secondly, it tends /not/ to be sustainable – it tends to come from unsustainably harvested local forests, and can lead to serious issues with deforestation.
That said replacing it with coal-burning power stations and electric stovetops isn’t the only solution. Burning biomass /cleanly/ can be done with properly designed stoves, which fixes the indoors air pollution issue; those stoves tend to be vastly more efficient as well, and can burn much lower quality biomass (i.e. they’ll burn anything vaguely woody that’s dry, including grass stems and the like), which makes a big different to the sustainability of cooking with biomass. Look up information about gasifying stoves if you’re interested. You can also replace inefficient wood burning stoves with natural gas systems supplied by methane digesters – in rural areas with cattle and sheep and the like, that’s almost a no-brainer, and it even produces high-value fertiliser as a by-product (you can even feed your home/town sewerage in as well, dealing with /that/ sanitation nightmare as a bonus).
All those kinds of ideas can be implemented /locally/, too – methane digesters can be built by anyone with basic plumbing skills, efficient gasifying stoves can be made by anyone with basic metalworking skills, really all that you need to add to the mix is the /knowledge/. Massive improvements in people’s standard of living can be achieved without needing to ship raw materials half-way around the world, without having to screw over the environment, and without having to disempower people or destroy much of their traditional culture and way of life in the process.
Coal is not the solution.
@john goss
“But in our passion to achieve necessary changes we can sometimes choose blunt instruments which may have some negative consequences.”
Passion? I don’t think so; it’s just rational to prevent any more of the damage that some of us with less passion can clearly see has been happening and the negative consequences can not be as bad as the negative consequences that come from the burning of coal, but you don’t see these already present negative consequences.
Perhaps your ‘passion’ for coal is motivated by the ubiquitous cultural cognition that ensures that people who have profited from coal and the neo-liberal ideology that encouraged the profligate use of coal are not able to understand how negative the consequences have been for other humans?
Do you think that ‘the market’ to which you refer is a very blunt instrument that has, in the hands of people who are passionate about their foolish belief in this made up ‘system’, rather than sceptical and rational, can and has created a hell on earth for so many people not like you?
Julie. There are so many things wrong with your characterisation of my position that there is no point in trying to argue against it. But let me assure you I do not have a passion for coal. I want the world to go to negative carbon emissions asap which means we must quickly move away from coal.
I am disappointed by your misunderstanding of my position because, in my view, your black and white style thinking which does not consider the evidence but puts out views based on priors, is the sort of thinking we get from the fossil fuel interests. And that sort of thinking is unhelpful for the planet and for humanity.
I disagree with a moratorium and I have explained why at JamesPTrevelyan.com. At its simplest, while the move to renewables is of great urgency, we need everyone on board to do it. This proposal will seem hypocritical coming from Australia as we have benefitted enormously by burning coal and selling the rest to others to burn it, and we will continue to do just that. Second, your comments in particular are directed at an Indian consortium, so it will be perceived in India as being in Australia’s self-interest. While Adani might not be popular at home, this will be likely to boost his standing. To make a global transformation to renewables, we need a broad consensus and as long as weak nations perceive self-interest by wealthy nations like Australia, consensus will be all that more difficult than it has been already. We need a smarter approach.
I disagree with having to have “everyone on board” to switch to renewables; you only need a majority to get elected.
@James Trevelyan
You mention “India” and “weak nations” within a sentence or two of each other. India is not a weak nation. It might be a poor nation on a per capita basis but it is not a weak nation.
1. Population is estimated at 1.270 billion of July 1 2015 (rank 2, 17.5% of world population).
2. Rank 7 in world in GDP. Rank 3 in world in GDP based on PPP (the more realistic measure).
3. Military rank 4 in world in conventional power.
4. Also possesses nuclear weapons.
India is a great power. Australia is a low ranking middle power at best. India can stand on its own feet, make its own energy decisions and create its own energy future. It does not need our coal as it has a lot of its own coal (7% of known world reserves). But let’s hope it doesn’t use it. The sun falls on all countries. The solar power is there for the taking.
@john goss
Yep I agree with you that there is no point in trying to argue against my characterisation of your position. I did only respond to what you wrote and the words you used and if you think my position is black and white and based on my priors and unhelpful then I think a good definition of any further conversation between us that addressed your concern about me misunderstanding your position would be “incommensurable”.
Looking at things from the position of the regional people – my neighbours – who were once determined climate change deniers, the idea of power being provided by renewables that we could manage at the local level is a thing that changes their minds about climate change not being a real thing.
Their attitude toward the loss of those jobs from no more mines has also changed and the negatives of this type of work is another thing that people in my town are talking about rather than the money that can be made doing this work.
The idea that important people are concerned enough to back a call for no more mines is a good thing for stimulating the conversation about how we can make the change to renewables and we don’t need to be smarter either.
What does it even mean to be smarter?
@john goss
If , as you suggest, coal miners paid for the full environmental cost of their product, they would not make a profit. So they wouldn’t open any new mines. Your proposal is rather more draconian than the one called for in the open letter – you would be shutting down existing mines.
Clearly your approach is better, and I suspect the only reason the open letter makes its proposal is as an interim step before your proposal becomes reality.
@John Brookes
“If , as you suggest, coal miners paid for the full environmental cost of their product, they would not make a profit.”
I agree with that statement. It’s interesting to consider this idea more widely. Let us consider the following proposition.
“If modern production systems paid for the full environmental cost of their products, they would not make a profit.”
I am not saying this is true in all cases but I suspect it is true in a lot of cases. What this idea essentially says is that capital accumulation in the current economy often occurs at the cost of the destruction of natural capital. It begs the question. How will capital accumulation (economic growth) continue when most of the earth’s natural capital is depleted?
Natural growth forests continue to be destroyed at a great rate. Plantation forests deplete soils and reduce species diversity: more forms of natural capital depletion. The oceans are being depleted of wild fish and also destroyed by acidification, plastics pollution and so on. Modern industrial agriculture depletes soils, rivers and aquifers. The list goes on.
I suspect if natural capital were valued accurately we would see currently that the world is losing capital not gaining it. That is to say, natural capital destruction is greater than capital accumulation in our economy. This has to be the case, considered at the first level, as no conversion process can be 100% efficient. At a second level, incoming solar energy is the only substantial input that comes “free” from outside the earth system. Thus at this second level it is theoretically possible for both natural capital and economic capital to increase in value simultaneously, at least up to a limiting point. But to operate in that zone, our economy would have to not be observably or measurably diminishing natural capital. We would need to see natural cycles replenishing natural capital at least as fast as we use it. Currently, this is clearly not the case.
The main activities obviously depleting natural capital faster than natural replenishment are;
(a) fossil fuel use
(b) agriculture
(c) forestry
(d) fishing
(e) mining
(f) urbanisation (as “paving over”).
Natural capital is not simply primary resources like mineral deposits, natural forests and fish stocks. Natural capital inheres in biosphere services which include ecological and even geophysical services. A clear example is the climate system which provides us with a set of geophysical services. Damaging these systems also equates to a depletion of natural capital. I suspect if the accounting were done correctly we would see that earth’s total capital (natural capital plus human economy capital) is now declining rapidly.
It looks like that subsequent to a number of polls and elections politicians have sensed the wind change and the Keystone pipeline project is dead.
Regarding Keystone, sure there are plenty of other ways for oil producers to get their product to customers. But it’s the political change that is of significance.
Second nice alternative to earn cash online with out funding iis
by on-line survey jobs.
@john goss
“. If all the above is done why should the government interfere with a commercial decision to build a new coal mine”
For the very good reason that the damage caused by the release of more carbon into the atmosphere transcends any commercial considerations. Particularly at the level of carbon emissions associated with the Adani project. If someone intended to explode a nuclear bomb for some commercial reason and defended it on the basis that it they would subsequently make good the damage caused we would hardly accept it as a valid argument. The continued burning of coal is that veritable “nuclear bomb” in terms of the damage it causes In making the planet inhabitable in the future.
@Ikonoclast
A valid argument, so while we may not be in a position to completely replace natural capital we should at least try and reduce its depletion. We can do this by using renewable forms of energy, by eliminating conspicuous/unneccessary consumption and some form of population control or encouragement to reduce population growth.
The reason a government should interfere to stop new coal mines, and should be looking hard at ways to close down dirty brown coal fired power stations, is a really simple one: if we are to have a better than 50/50 probability of not exceeding a 2C increase in temperature on average, we have to put a stake in the ground and say “stop it”. Let’s face it, arm waving and nice white paper reports explaining the consequences have been entirely lost on the last two LNP oppositions and the current LNP government, especially that recent ex-PM Tony Abbott.
The LNP have demonstrated quite convincingly that if a party is persuasive enough, it can garner votes to get over the line, even though it isn’t in the best interest of the very people voting them in. No person who has young children should be putting their chances of a good future at unnecessary risk, and yet that is what our woeful shortfall in action is doing. Ol’ John Howard loved to inform us that our efforts would be at best 1.5% of the total difference, so we shouldn’t harm our current prosperity by spending a dirty nickel on helping out…but he was wrong, because not taking action is a symbolic action of its own, saying Australia doesn’t think there is a problem, or if there is, it can’t be bothered helping…
The trouble is, a few well-placed individuals, trumpeting their opinions in their own global media empires, can exploit the inaction of Australia as leverage to discourage other much larger and more significant countries from taking adequate action. We all know of at least one doofhead who has employed that strategy. Thing is, they have so much wealth that their heirs can probably buy their way out of most of the trouble which global warming is tipped to cause, so they feel safe from consequences. If they think that far ahead.
We need more coal mining even less than another hole in the head. Racing around blowing billions looking for more, when we know the exercise in self-punishment that burning it will bring to bear, is insane; if that dough were channelled into other options, we’d be creating a margin for safety which we currently don’t have (because of our BAU trajectory).
A look back through the past 40 or 50 years at this topic really feels like Groundhog Day.
@Donald Oats
I know it is an exercise at being Cassandra, but what the heck.
@rog
My understanding of Keystone is that it was crucial for the future of Canadian tar sands exploitation by transporting it to the Gulf of Mexico states. Now it will mean the Canadians will have to consider pipelines to either the Pacific or Atlantic coasts – a huge expense that the Alberta tar sands could not economically justify. In fact I wonder how this form of extraction which I thought was dependent on the oil being above US$85 a barrel is still operating. Is it a case of the development having matured to a point where production costs can be ‘buried’ by sheer volume produced like Rio and BHP currently do with iron ore exports?