Paris (AFP) – Despite the climate damage, projects to build or expand coal-fired power plants are continuing in 34 different countries, especially China, according to the annual report of the Global Energy Monitor, a research center published on Tuesday.
The report stated that the world includes about 2,400 coal-fired power plants in 79 countries with a total production capacity of 2,100 gigawatts, with plans to increase production by 457 gigawatts through new projects for coal-fired power plants. However, the report welcomed the slowdown in the global trend of these facilities, with the exception of last year.
The report of the San Francisco-based research center indicated: “There are still 170 stations (89 gigawatts), or 5% of the total stations operating at present, that are not covered by a date for their gradual shutdown or with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality.”
The report was co-authored by eight other international environmental organizations, Sierra Club in the US, Kiko in Japan, Europe in Europe, LIFE in India and BWGED in Bangladesh, as well as Crea, E3G and SFOC.
In 2021, the total production capacity of coal-fired plants in the world increased by 18.2 gigawatts, a rise linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the report indicated. Its authors stressed that China “remains the glaring exception to the decline currently recorded in the number of stations that are in the process of development.”
Last year, more than half of the production units put into service (45 gigawatts) were in China (25.2 gigawatts), 14% in India, and 11% in Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.
China alone has new projects (with a total production capacity of 25.2 GW) almost equal to the closures recorded in the rest of the world (25.6 GW).
The report denounced the “resumption of building licenses” for coal-fired plants in China at the beginning of 2022, allowed by a “review of the country’s energy policy,” which came after a crisis and rationing of electricity in more than half of the country’s regions at the end of 2021.
And in the rest of the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ call at the COP26 UN climate conference in Glasgow to abandon building new coal-fired power plants to stem global warming has set in motion a “certain dynamism”, with 65 countries committing not to build, more By 36 since January 2021.
Within OECD countries, 86% of countries no longer have any new coal-fired project. Six countries are officially continuing to study new projects, namely the United States, Australia, Poland, Mexico, Japan and Turkey, although many of them “do not have any chance of seeing the light of day,” according to the report’s authors.
For example, it is “unlikely” that a project backed by former President Donald Trump will be implemented in the United States. The report also said that a Polish plant with a capacity of 500 megawatts planned in Lisna would not initially be built “in view of European climate policy”.
In Africa, where the next Conference of Parties (COP27) will be held in Egypt, 12 countries still have coal-related projects, three countries less, compared to 2021 (Ivory Coast, Morocco and Djibouti).
The report stressed that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s commitment during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 to stop financing the construction of coal-fired plants outside China “makes many African projects void”, as China is the main financial supporter of these new stations on the continent.
However, the report’s authors expressed concern about the possibility that Beijing would implement the contracts signed before this commitment, and “it is not yet clear whether China will withdraw from the projects of 556 stations whose public banks and private companies intend to finance them.”
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