With electricity shortages, the comeback of coal?

• China, already the world's largest producer of coal, an energy that emits a lot of greenhouse gases, is in the process of increasing its production by nearly 6%.

• India, Turkey, Mongolia, Vietnam, Pakistan… have also fallen back on coal in recent months.

  A cyclical situation, but which testifies to the still strong global dependence on coal.

• Because if the announcements in the direction of an exit from coal have multiplied since 2015 and the number of new coal infrastructure projects is decreasing, there are 8,500 coal-fired power stations still in operation.

  And more to come.

This is a bad signal a few days before the opening of COP26 in Glasgow, the annual diplomatic high mass dedicated to the fight against climate change.

China, already the world's largest producer of coal, an energy that emits a lot of greenhouse gases, is on the way to increase its production by nearly 6%, and even recently reached a daily production record, authorities announced on Tuesday. Chinese.

It is not a surprise.

On October 8, Beijing asked 72 coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region to increase their production by a total of 98 million tonnes.

In early August, he also authorized the reopening of fifteen mines in the north of the country.

At the same time, China is increasing its imports.

Including Australia, the world's largest exporter, although they had been banned since October 2020 amid trade tensions between the two countries, the

reported in early October

.

Just a break dictated by a very specific context?

Everything is being done so that Chinese coal-fired power plants can run at full capacity, while the country is going through repeated electricity shortages that are affecting its economy. And the global economy in turn.

This strong comeback of coal in China, whose electricity mix is ​​already 60% based on this energy, is in contradiction with its promise, a year ago, to reach a peak of its CO2 emissions before 2030 and neutrality. carbon in 2060. François Kalaydjian, at the head of the “economy and watch” department at IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), sees it above all as a pause in the achievement of these climate objectives “dictated by a context that is nonetheless very particular ”. “The winter of 2020 was particularly cold and long in the northern hemisphere, so much so that more than usual was drawn from natural gas storage,” he begins. Added to this was the restart of world economies after the health crisis. Including that of China which, initially,has massively imported gas [less polluting than coal] to meet the needs of its industries. "Result: tensions on the gas market and a price which soars, to the point of forcing Beijing to seek alternatives.

A still strong temptation?

Among these, coal precisely.

Tempting for China, therefore, but not only.

On August 25, Ember, a British energy and climate research firm, noted that several emerging countries - India, Turkey, Mongolia, Vietnam, Pakistan - have initiated "a gray revival" of their electricity production when their economies restart.

That is to say by betting partly on wind and solar power, but also heavily on coal.

Hence a return to the rise, since the beginning of 2021, of GHG emissions linked to the production of electricity.

"Coal is still inexpensive energy to produce today," recalls Sofia Kabbej, researcher in the "climate, energy and security" program of the Institute of International Relations (Iris). It is easy to access, reserves remain important in many countries, and the technologies to transform it into electricity are now mastered. »Advantages that renewable energies (ENR) do not yet have. Developing them on a massive scale requires heavy investments and further lifting of technological barriers, including that of storage. “This energy transition cannot be decreed one fine morning, it is a long and difficult road,” recalls François Kalaydjian.

What still leaves long years to coal? The insistent calls of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to immediately abandon any new fossil energy project have not always remained. dead letter. Since 2015 and the Paris Agreement, 44 states, including 27 from the OECD, have officially committed to no longer launch new power plants, Ember recalls in a report dated October 7. Forty others no longer have the slightest pre-project of this nature, of which four - Japan, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan - are completing the construction of their last plant and have no intention of going any further. far. Overall, since 2015, “the number of coal-fired power plant projects has collapsed by 76%,” notes Ember.

8,500 coal-fired power stations in operation… more to come?

So much for the tails, rather exciting, to which we can add the announcement of China, on September 22, to stop building coal plants abroad, which has invested heavily in this regard, over the last decade, in Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh.

Lorette Philippot, “private finance” campaigner at Friends of the Earth, and Lucie Pinson, director of Reclaim Finance, draw attention to the “face” side. "We are still very far from the right trajectory to get out of coal before 2030 for the OECD countries, and before 2040 for the others," they recall. Around 8,500 power plants are in operation worldwide, for a total capacity of more than 2,000 gigawatts, recalled Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, and David Malpass, president of the World Bank group, in a forum at Le Monde on 7 October. They produce more than a third of the electricity and are responsible for a fifth of global GHG emissions, more than any other source of energy, they continued. And in Asia,these plants are young - 13 years on average according to the IEA - while they are planned for a lifespan of forty to fifty years.

Above all, if the number of coal projects has slowed down in recent years, that does not mean that there are no more.

"More than 300 new plants should be commissioned in the next five years", thus indicated Fatih Birol and David Malpass in

.

China alone accounts for more than half (55%) of projects under construction or to come.

Several units are also planned in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh.

Put pressure on financial institutions?

For its part, the German NGO Urgewald updated, at the beginning of October, the “Global coal exist list”, a public database on the global coal industry.

"Of the 1,030 companies listed, nearly half still plan new mining, power plant or infrastructure projects, and only 49 have announced coal exit dates," the report explains.

What can be done so that coal can no longer be the energy of the future?

For François Kalaydjian, the main lever would be "to give a dissuasive price to the emission of a ton of CO2, which has not been done so far on the various existing carbon markets," he indicates.

In Europe, it is around 60 euros.

The value should be double.

"

For their part, Friends of the Earth and Reclaim Finance want to make financial institutions (investors, banks, insurers, etc.) face up to their responsibilities.

"We ask that they finally stop all financial support to the companies listed in this" Global coal exist list ", even for their RES projects, from the moment when they continue, in parallel, to develop projects in the coal" , indicates Lorette Philippot.

Here again, we are far there, including in France.

But the two NGOs do not despair of strong announcements in this direction in the coming days.

In particular Tuesday, in Paris, during the seventh edition of Climate finance day, a major annual meeting of international finance on the issues of global warming.

Which would be a good signal before COP26.

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