Coal in Emerging Markets: After Us, the Flood

People lie down on train tracks, chain themselves to trains.

What Germany went through in the Hambach Forest is now happening at the other end of the world: On the east coast of Australia, coal opponents and climate protectionists are fighting against the opening of one of the largest coal mines on earth.

The anger of the demonstrators is still growing that the black export goods are being shipped to India via the Barrier Reef, a world natural heritage site that is severely threatened by climate change.

They fight with no prospect of success. Australian governments will not give in a bit. And the operator of the mine, the Indian Adani Group, will not buckle either. In its wake, Australian mineral corporations will open further deposits in the huge coal area. They do this because coal is in demand.

It will stay that way for a long time, because 40 percent of Asia's energy supply comes from "black gold". The emerging countries there represent 75 percent of the increase in coal consumption by 2050. The way out of poverty - which is growing again in the Corona crisis - leads to increasing demand for electricity. Anyone who lives in the Pakistani Moloch Karachi and has electricity from the socket for the first time thanks to the coal-fired power plants built by Chinese in the Thar desert will not plead for switching off. On the contrary: he will re-elect the government that gave him the energy. That is why “coal” is the name of the recipe for all governments. Take Vietnam, for example: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh promised that his country would "proactively" push ahead with the exit. Days later, his government announced in “Electricity Development Plan 8” that coal-fired power would be doubled by 2030.And as green as Chief Communist Xi Jinping colors his words: China's share of new coal-fired power plants rose to 76 percent last year. In 2019 it was still 64 percent.

COP26 did not bring about the big breakthrough

Furthermore, thanks to coal, politicians secure their influence and their income, albeit at the expense of the future.

In view of the storms of climate change, the slogan “After us the flood” takes on a whole new meaning.

As in the industrialized countries, the climate pressure is still too abstract, despite increasingly faster paced disasters, to cause masses to turn away from the previous growth path.

The salting of the fields, the dying of the reefs or the coughing of children in the polluted air of New Delhi still move too few decision-makers to change course.

More votes can be captured in Asia with energy from coal than with forward-looking climate policy.

It is true that everyone in Asia's management levels prays down the mantra of solar power, wind energy and hydrogen in order to secure recognition and funding from the West. The clean energies are being expanded. But they will not replace coal for decades. The same applies to atomic energy. New reactors, banned in Germany, could possibly solve a bottleneck. Their security risks in operation under unreliable governments and unsolved disposal speak against them.

Only the bare numbers give rise to hope: the American government estimates that the price of one megawatt hour of electricity from coal will cost more than $ 90 in 2025, while that for wind will be $ 63 and that from solar power will be $ 48. Coal can become very expensive when logistics jams or mines - ironically, in the heavy rain caused by climate change - fill up: Last summer, the ton cost more than ever at $ 269.

Nevertheless, the price of coal-fired power generation is still not high enough to change minds among politicians who think short-term. The COP26 climate conference in Glasgow did not bring about the big breakthrough. The new, green government in Berlin now wants to strengthen the environment in foreign trade policy. It remains to be seen whether free trade agreements with sustainability constraints are acceptable for Asians if Beijing is always happy to fill threatening gaps.

However, since the marginal profit from further replacement investments for coal in the industrialized countries is decreasing, all that remains in the long run is pressure, transfer payments and technology transfer to help emerging countries change course.

There one will castigate claims as neo-colonialism, here complain about higher tax burdens.

But the earth's climate cannot be saved in the West alone.

If the warning scientists are as correct about climate change as they are about Corona, politicians should better listen to them.

Because the climate knows no boundaries either.