I was six when I started catching shrimp in the waterways of Louisiana. I inherited the livelihood that sustained my father, grandfather, and generations before them. My boat in the Gulf of Mexico is my second home. But I may lose it all – in part to Japan’s dangerous investments in fossil gas.

Eight years ago, fossil fuel companies and their government allies moved Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects into the region and turned our fishing community upside down. The Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal was just 300 feet from my house, and promised “deep-water access, proximity to plentiful gas supplies and ease of transport for buyers”. Vibrations from its operations were so intense they knocked pictures off my wall. My wife suffered a heart attack, and my children were frequently ill. Facing dire health consequences and daily interruptions, my family was driven from our home.

Most people don’t realize that Japan is bankrolling LNG and the destruction along the US Gulf Coast. Japanese private banks MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC are the first, second, and third biggest financiers of LNG export projects in the US. These banks have committed more than $13 million,  $11 million, and $10 million respectively to US-based LNG projects.

On April 10, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet with President Joe Biden in Washington, DC to discuss the US and Japan’s commitment to promoting stability in the world and the advancement of clean energy supply chains. Biden clearly understands the need to take a hard look at the impacts of future LNG development as indicated by the pause he announced recently.

His administration has called the climate crisis the “existential threat of our time,” and sees the US as a champion to support other world leaders’ transition to green energy. But my family, and so many around me, are still waiting for change.

Travis Dardar drives his boat on the water with the Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal shown in the background. (Photo: Susanne Wong / Oil Change International)

Massive LNG tankers now crowd the water and wildlife is disappearing. Before the Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal started operating last year, local fishermen caught about 700,000 pounds of shrimp annually. The shrimp catch is now down nearly 90%, with no compensation for losing our livelihoods.

The devastating impacts of LNG on communities like mine and our unwavering opposition is the reason why in January President Biden paused LNG export approvals. The US Department of Energy is supposed to consider how to determine whether these projects are in the public interest and to take into account impacts on communities, ecosystems, and climate. Unfortunately, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently indicated this pause could be lifted within the year, when what we really need is for President Biden to stop all new LNG export projects for good.

European court rules climate inaction by states breaches human rights

Increasingly, the international community recognizes fossil fuels’ toxic effects on the environment and communities and the momentum is shifting towards clean energy.  Yet, Japan is still driving the expansion of gas and LNG in the US, across Asia and globally. In spite of Japan’s declining LNG demand at home, Japan is staking its economic growth on pushing governments across South and Southeast Asia to import LNG.

I invite Prime Minister Kishida to travel on my boat while he is in the US to see for himself the impact of Japan’s dirty energy projects on Gulf communities.

Air pollution hits health

Health deterioration in my community is unsurprising, given the plant’s pollution emissions. Long-term exposure to LNG chemicals can lead to heart disease and certain types of cancer, and living near a pollution center has been linked to increased stress, depression, and other mental health problems.

According to research by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal violated its air pollution permits on 286 of the first 343 days it was in operation – 83% of its first year. Rather than working to clean up its operations, Venture Global, the gas company behind the LNG facility, petitioned the state air quality agency to increase its allowable pollution limits. If the gas project already built can’t even follow pollution regulations, how can we expect the two plants posed for construction upstream to do so?

Despite this, the Gulf area buzzes with Japanese LNG operations. The proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 terminal is part of a 20-year contract with JERA, Japan’s largest gas company and the world’s largest LNG buyer. JERA agreed to buy 1 million tons of LNG annually from the project. INPEX, Japan’s largest oil and gas producer, also signed a 20-year contract to buy 1 million tons of LNG annually. These corporate operations and their profits are behind Japan’s push to expand LNG markets around the world.

Zambia’s fossil-fuel subsidy cuts help climate and kids – but taxi drivers suffer

Japan has developed a regional initiative, the Asia Zero Emissions Community, that will expand and prolong the use of fossil fuels by proposing to abate their emissions. This is a greenwashing effort to push governments in Asia to adopt dangerous distractions like hydrogen, ammonia, and carbon capture and storage. In reality, this will expand and prolong the harm of fossil fuels on communities like mine.

Although Biden’s pause on LNG export authorizations is a step in the right direction, it’s hard to celebrate here in Cameron Parish. LNG tankers dominate the water, and fishers are left to collect the scraps of our communities and livelihoods. Even with the setbacks, our community hasn’t given up hope. I founded Fishermen Interested in Saving Our Heritage (FISH), a united front that will fight to protect our homes, the environment, and access to the Gulf waters. We are focused on saving our way of life.

As the largest LNG exporter in the world, the US holds major influence in this tainted market. During their upcoming meeting, I urge Prime Minister Kishida and President Biden to recognize our future in renewables and stop sacrificing frontline communities for profit.

The post Louisiana communities are suffering from Japan-funded LNG exports appeared first on Climate Home News.

The city authorities declared on Tuesday they had fully met all their air quality targets for the first time in 2021 – almost a decade earlier than experts expected. This followed measures to curb coal smoke from heavy industry and home heating.

Between 2013 and 2021, they claimed to have reduced the weight of dangerous particles (PM2.5) in the air by 63% to 33 micrograms. The official figures are in line with those recorded from the US embassy in Beijing and progress reported by the UN Environment Programme. While a huge improvement, the average pollution level is still more than double the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 15 micrograms.

David Vance Wagner was the US climate envoy’s China lead under president Barack Obama. He tweeted: “Incredible… Extraordinary progress that was almost unimaginable 10 years ago.”

Incredible: Beijing gov’t has announced that the city met China’s air quality targets for all 6 key pollutants in 2021. Extraordinary progress that was almost unimaginable 10 years ago. https://t.co/M5XiGoilDA pic.twitter.com/5Tpcf0vNu2

— David Vance Wagner (@vancewagner) January 4, 2022

Greenpeace East Asia’s political adviser Li Shuo told Climate Home News: “Back in 2013 [when particularly severe air pollution sparked protests], the current progress is what we thought could only be possible around 2030.”

While Beijing has been attempting to reduce air pollution since before the 2008 Olympics, the issue shot up the political agenda in the winter of 2012/2013 when the PM2.5 level spiked to 993 micrograms/m3.

At the time there were media reports of children playing sport in domes, international companies handing out masks to foreign employees and elite golfers wearing masks at a televised competition in Beijing.

Lauri Myllyvirta, director of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air said: “There was an outpouring of public concern and anger. It was the golden period of Chinese social media expression [before censorship intensified] and it was just everywhere. It was really the main topic of conversation.”

He added that the pressure on the government was greater because Beijing’s middle and upper class, including the decision-makers themselves, were affected.

A girl and her mother wear respirator masks and hold a banner reading “No PM2.5”. (Photo: Greenpeace/Wu Di)

US direct diplomacy played a role, with the embassy installing air pollution monitors and regularly tweeting the PM2.5 pollution levels to raise awareness. It used the US Environmental Protection agency label which classified as “hazardous” concentrations the Chinese government labelled as “moderately polluted”, Myllyvirta said.

“That discrepancy, even more than the data and the numbers, showed that the Chinese government [was] playing this down and not taking it seriously,” he added.

In response to the criticism, the Beijing authorities cracked down emissions from coal. They continued their policy of switching from coal power to gas and worked with neighbours to set emissions standards for coal-fired power stations and heavy industries like steel and cement.

Coal-burning industries were financially rewarded for reducing emissions. Many installed machines called scrubbers, which filter out harmful particles before they are released into the atmosphere.

Homeowners got subsidies to switch their coal-fired boilers, used to heat homes in the winter, to cleaner gas-fired ones. “In the winter of 2017/2018, coal-based heating was basically eliminated,” Myllyvirta said.

Stacks of coal for sale in a Hutong (alley) in Beijing in 2006. (Photo: Greenpeace/Natalie Behring)

Myllyvirta said Beijing’s example shows reducing air pollution is “doable” and “makes perfect economic sense”. Every country’s path to reducing air pollution will differ though, he said, as their decision-making systems and pollution sources vary.

Li said that Beijing’s success has been repeated across China. “Most cities have seen improvement over the last decade. Beijing is certainly one of the fastest,” he said. But, he added, “it is still miserable in much of Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, and Sichuan”.

Myllyvirta said he expected Beijing’s air pollution levels to continue to fall and the authorities next needed to reduce the absolute amount of coal and oil that is burned.

The post ‘Extraordinary progress’ – Beijing meets air pollution goals after coal crackdown appeared first on Climate Home News.

The unusually critical inspection report into the National Energy Administration (NEA) has been interpreted by analysts as a warning to civil servants that president Xi Jinping’s climate ambition is to be reflected across all energy planning decisions.

The Central Environmental Inspection Team (CEIT) report accused “some comrades of the NEA” of failing to attach enough importance to environmental protection and the promotion of low-carbon energy, which it described as a “deviation in ideological understanding”.

The report criticised the building of coal power plants in populous regions with bad air pollution, accused the NEA of failing to stop coal mines producing more than they were supposed to and denounced poor policy coordination regarding renewable energy consumption.

Although staffed by officials from the relatively weak environment ministry, the CEIT reports to Han Zheng, a powerful member of the Politburo and President Xi’s right-hand man on environmental issues.

This is as big as it gets in China’s energy policy: An environmental inspection authorized by the Party Central Committee has been carried out at the National Energy Agency, and the final report is BRUTAL in calling out failure to rein in coal.https://t.co/VVXhsDFqBt

— Lauri Myllyvirta (@laurimyllyvirta) January 30, 2021

Dimitri De Boer, who heads ClientEarth’s China office, said: “This is a highly encouraging development – environmental disciplinary inspections are a very powerful tool, so it’s great that they are being deployed to accelerate the climate transition.”

Zhang Jianyu, founder of the Environmental Defence Fund’s (EDF) China programme, told Climate Home News the report was “groundbreaking” and Greenpeace East Asia’s Li Shuo said it showed that “weak ambition would not be tolerated”.

New Zealand urged to accelerate emissions cuts in line with 2050 net zero goal

Inspectors have demanded the NEA draw up a “rectification plan”. The document is due to be submitted to the State Council within 30 working days and will be made public.

This could include a clampdown on some of the newly approved coal plants, analysts told Climate Home but Zhang, of EDF, suggested it could go further.

“I think we would expect a major overhaul of [the current] fossil fuel based energy development plan to happen” to be “consistent” with Beijing’s global climate goals, he said.

He added negative inspection reports damaged the chances of promotion for the officials in charge. This will be particularly on NEA officials’ minds ahead of next year’s Chinese Communist Party congress, which will appoint a new generation of leaders, he said.

According to Refinitiv energy analyst Yan Qin, the report has “triggered huge debate in China and will put some pressure on both central and local energy regulators in accommodating climate goals in their decision making”.

China’s coal production in 2020 reached its highest level since 2015, as officials in coal-rich provinces turned to traditional industries to revive the economy after Covid-19.

US plans to end fossil fuel finance overseas, threatens billions in support for oil and gas

Since President Xi’s announcement last September that China will aim for carbon neutrality by 2060, a handful of major Chinese companies and provinces have begun to draw up plans to peak emissions and reach net zero. These companies include China’s largest steelmaker Baowu Steel and oil, gas and chemical company Sinopec.

De Boer said these pledges are “a big deal” and “will certainly trigger a lot of learning and reflection among the leadership in these state-owned companies, about climate change and viable business models in a zero-carbon world”.

Thomas Hale, associate professor at the Blavatanik school of government, said Chinese businesses were trying to “get on the right side of government policy” but their announcements were “pretty superficial” and “sometimes baffling”.

“I haven’t really seen much that suggests many of these companies are fully cognizant of the vast transformations ahead of them,” he said. “Net zero is already the norm, but now the real debates are on credibility. Chinese companies have not been part of these debates, but will likely need to grapple with them soon.”

To achieve carbon neutrality, oil company China National Offshore Oil Corpororation (CNOOC) plans to invest in methane gas and accelerate the construction of “green oil fields” while using forest-based offsets to meet its net zero commitment.

The steel-making Angang Group says it is building “garden style” iron mines and PetroChina is planning to spend 3-5bn yuan ($460m) a year on sectors such as solar and hydrogen, as well as methane gas.

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Following President Xi’s commitment that China will peak its emissions before 2030, Beijing has yet to submit an improved climate plan to the UN.

Greenpeace’s Li said he expects “potential interplay” between China and other major emitters, including the US, which is also due to present an updated and more ambitious climate plan. The US has promised to submit its plan by the time it hosts world leaders for a climate summit on April 22.

Since Joe Biden’s inauguration, US and Chinese officials have clashed on whether the world’s two largest polluters can co-operate on climate change in isolation from more contentious issues such as trade, human rights and the militarisation of South China Sea.

Presidential envoy on climate John Kerry recently described climate action as a “critical standalone issue” in US-China relations. But Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhào Lìjiān swiftly rejected the idea.

“China is ready to cooperate with the United States and the international community on climate change,” he told a press briefing. “That said, China-US cooperation in specific areas, unlike flowers that can bloom in a greenhouse despite winter chill, is closely linked with bilateral relations as a whole”.

Li, of Greenpeace, warned: “No one should underestimate the challenges in US-China climate engagement.”

The post Chinese inspectors slam energy authority over coal expansion spree appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a pointed message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Guterres said scaling up solar energy would help solve two of India’s key development priorities: alleviating poverty and bringing power to 64 million Indians still lacking energy access.

Speaking at Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) on Friday, Guterres said ongoing support for fossil fuels around the world was “deeply troubling”. India is subsidising fossil fuels seven times as much as clean energy.

Modi recently launched an auction of 41 coal mining blocks to private investors. The prime minister said this would create hundreds of thousands of jobs at a time of economic fallout from Covid-19 and reduce India’s dependence on imported coal.

But Guterres warned rising temperatures caused by emissions from coal and other fossil fuels, would see India endure more intense heatwaves, floods and droughts, increased water stress and reduced food production if global warming edged over 1.5C by the end of the century.

“This strategy will only lead to further economic contraction and damaging health consequences. It is, simply put, a human disaster and bad economics,” he said. “Clean energy and closing the energy access gap are good business. They are the ticket to growth and prosperity.”

Extra UN climate talks mooted for 2021 to help negotiators catch up

Guterres, who has championed a green recovery to the pandemic, has become increasingly direct in his climate rhetoric. He is demanding the world’s largest economies, known as the G20, end fossil fuel subsidies, put a price on carbon pollution and commit not to build any new coal power plants or mines after 2020.

Last month, Guterres confronted China over its coal boom during a lecture at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, urging the world’s largest emitter to recover green.

However, few leaders are listening. Since the start of the pandemic, G20 countries have pledged $204 billion of support to fossil fuels. That is 52% of all public money committed to the energy sector, compared with 35% for clean energy, according the Energy Policy Tracker.

India, the world’s third largest emitter, has committed $8.9bn to fossil fuels, $6.8bn of it to coal, compared with $1.2bn for clean energy.

And yet, renewable generators have proved more resilient than coal, which bore the brunt of the collapse of energy demand caused by coronavirus restrictions, and is struggling against increasingly competitive solar prices.

Analysis by think-tank Ember found India’s share of wind and solar in electricity generation rose from 3% in 2015 to nearly 10% in the first half of 2020, while coal’s share fell from 77% to 68% in the same period.

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Half of India’s coal will be uncompetitive in 2022, reaching up to 85% by 2025, Guterres warned. “This is why the world’s largest investors are increasingly abandoning coal,” he said. “The coal business is going up in smoke.”

On Friday, the CEOs of 20 leading Indian businesses signed up to a “call for action” highlighting eight areas that could deliver “a step change in sustainable growth” as the government focuses on restarting the economy and addressing rising unemployment rates.

Accelerating the transition of the power sector to clean energy sources, electrifying transport and increasing research in clean technology such as hydrogen should be prioritised to create jobs, lower energy costs and cut emissions, they say.

Ajay Mathur, director general of Teri, told Climate Home News a number of Indian businesses and financiers understood that investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency provided both “short-term profitability and long-term sustainability”.

Guterres’ message, he said, comes at a time when Indian financiers are “starting to consider the possibility of a renewable-based future” – something unimaginable just five years ago.

India’s solar boom is threatened by anti-China trade tariffs

Guterres insisted investments in renewable energy would generate more jobs than in the fossil fuel sector and boost India’s recovery.

But although such investments would create healthier and higher quality jobs, they are not a ready alternative for the estimated 500,000 coal miners in India, Swati Dsouza, a New Delhi-based energy consultant, told CHN.

She cited a study published in the Environmental Research Letters journal in March which found that although nearly all coal mining areas in India would be suitable for solar power generation, installed capacity would need to increase 37 times to transition all of India’s coal miners who live in suitable areas to solar jobs.

“We already have a very big base of people employed in the coal sector and there is no transition plan for them,” she said, adding coal mining supported livelihoods and activities of entire towns in coal-rich regions. “What are we going to do about that?”

Despite efforts to scale up Indian solar manufacturing, the homegrown capacity remains limited, Dsouza said, adding solar installations jobs required a level of education that miners often lacked.

The post Guterres tells India coal business ‘going up in smoke’ as investors back clean tech appeared first on Climate Home News.

Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said the pandemic would transform societies. It would be impossible simply to reactivate the pre-Covid-19 global economy in the way that billion-dollar bailouts helped revive growth after the 2008 financial crisis.

“It’s a kind of a fork in the road for every country,” he told Climate Home News in a video interview from New York, adding that developing nations were especially vulnerable. “You have an opportunity to either invest in returning to yesterday’s economy or to invest into tomorrow’s economy.”

The coronavirus has killed more than 190,000 people worldwide.

Steiner said that the plunge in benchmark US oil prices to lows of around minus $40 a barrel on Monday – meaning producers and traders paying to get rid of it – highlighted a need to break dependence on fossil fuels and move to greener energies such as solar and wind power.

Crude began the year trading above $60.

“The fact that the lifeblood of our economy for much of the last 100 years has been dependent on a substance (whose price) oscillates literally in a few months by 200%, sometimes 300% … is in itself an illustration of how irrational our energy has become,” he said.

New Zealand sticks to 2030 climate target while waiting for 1.5C advice

He said that nuclear power had also failed to live up to promises of being a cheap and safe source of energy. Nuclear power “is a 20th century technology that is on the way out. Fossil fuels are rapidly moving in that direction.”

In government planning “there are thousands of possibilities in our daily economic transactions to insert the DNA of a low-carbon transition and recovery strategy. These are the possibilities we now need to test,” he said.

He noted that the Austrian government, for instance, said this month that state aid for Austrian Airlines should support climate policy targets. Similar opportunities to shape a greener future existed in all stimulus packages.

At the same time, he said that many countries, especially developing nations dependent on oil exports, needed to safeguard jobs and would need time to reform.

“You can’t talk a terrible crisis into a rosy opportunity,” he said. “We need to now have governments and markets design their strategy of exiting from fossil fuels over a period of probably 50 years, but with increasing and accelerating pace.”

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Almost 200 governments committed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century. That is seen as essential to limit rising temperatures that scientists link to wildfires, heatwaves, rising seas and more powerful storms.

This week, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) estimated a deep decarbonisation of the world economy by 2050 requires total energy investment up to $130 trillion.

It would boost cumulative global GDP gains above business-as-usual by $98 trillion between now and 2050 and have benefits such as quadrupling renewable energy jobs to 42 million, Irena said.

Steiner said a green transition would also help reduce climate change and air pollution that kills millions of people a year. There were also risks that fossil fuel reserves would become stranded assets, that were unusable and worthless for investors.

IPCC: UN climate science report to consider lessons from coronavirus

Developing nations were most at risk from coronavirus and restrictions on trade and travel, since they cannot mobilise billions of dollars to shield their citizens.

In the Indian Ocean state of the Maldives, for instance, “no tourism means no economy,” he said.

Steiner was head of the UN Environment Programme at the time of the financial crisis and urged the adoption of a Global Green New Deal in 2009 to shift economies away from fossil fuels, one of the first uses of an idea that has since caught on far more widely.

In 2009, the reaction “was still a very partial and relatively limited green stimulus” even though nations including China, the United States, the European Union and South Korea and others invested billions of dollars into green measures.

And Covid-19 “isn’t a crisis we can solve with bailouts,” he said. “This time we are not going to see a return to a pre-Covid normal. It’s not just about getting back the economy we had before.”

He governments should put more resources into planning for the future.

“This is not a black swan, this is not Rumsfeld’s unknown unknown,” he said of the pandemic, referring to former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who spoke of “unknown unknowns” when discussing uncertainties about Iraq’s weapons arsenal.

“We have just been catapulted into that domain where oil is something that we actually cannot use,” Steiner said.

The post UN development chief calls for green shift away from ‘irrational’ oil dependence appeared first on Climate Home News.

President Moon Jae-in’s party won a landslide 180 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, up from 120 previously, in a huge show of faith in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The election was one of the first nationwide polls to take place since the start of the pandemic, but the threat of Covid-19 did not deter voters from casting their ballot, with a record turnout.

Voters had to wear a mask and gloves and use hand sanitiser, with those failing a temperature check directed to special booths.

The Democratic Party’s decisive victory will enable President Moon to press ahead with its newly adopted Green New Deal agenda during the last two years of his mandate.

Under the plan, South Korea has become the first country in East Asia to pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

As part of the Paris Agreement, countries have agreed to submit updated climate plans to 2030 and long-term decarbonisation strategies to the UN before the end of the year.

Analysis: Which countries have a net zero carbon goal?

In its climate manifesto published last month, the Democratic Party promised to pass a “Green New Deal” law that would steer the country’s transformation into a low-carbon economy.

The manifesto explicitly referred to the “Green New Deal” plans of Democratic candidates in the US and the EU’s “Green Deal for Europe”, under which the European Commission promised to make the EU the first carbon-neutral continent.

The plan includes large-scale investments in renewable energy, the introduction of a carbon tax, the phase out of domestic and overseas coal financing by public institutions, and the creation of a Regional Energy Transition Centre to support workers transition to green jobs.

The Democratic Party also pledged to develop a medium to long-term roadmap to achieve its goal and campaigners are pressing President Moon to come up with a clear timeline and policies to meet it.

Jessica Yun, of the South Korean advocate group Solutions For Our Climate (SFOC), told Climate Home News she now expected climate change and energy issues to become more prominent within the national political debate.

“It is a positive sign that the ruling Democratic Party has successfully brought in environmental leaders from the coal phase-out and energy transition movement,” she said.

“This is a clear mandate and opportunity for the party to implement these policies,” said Ursula Fuentes Hutfilter, a senior climate policy advisor specialised in the Asia-Pacific region at research group Climate Analytics.

She added that for the Democratic Party to turn its promises into something credible it needed to take “concrete steps”, including updating its 2030 emissions target and developing a clear roadmap to phase out coal power.

Renewable energies under threat in 2020 from coronavirus, oil price slump

Under its existing climate plan, South Korea pledged to cut emissions 37% below projected business-as-usual levels by 2030. An increase of the target was not mentioned in the Democratic Party’s climate platform.

Climate Action Tracker ranked that target as “highly insufficient” to meet the goal of the Paris deal to limit global warming to “well below 2C”.

South Korea is the world’s seventh largest carbon emitter. Coal represents about 40% of the country’s energy mix and Seoul has not yet agreed on a national phase-out date.

The country is also one of the biggest funders of coal projects abroad. In 2016 and 2017, it provided $1.1 billion of public finance for the construction of new coal plants overseas, according to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

As of this year, South Korea has 60 coal fired plant units, accounting for a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and another seven units under construction, according to Climate Analytics. It said Seoul would have to phase out coal by 2029 to do its fair share to tackle climate change.

The post South Korea to implement Green New Deal after ruling party election win appeared first on Climate Home News.

If a downturn in air pollution observed by satellites over China in February lasts a year, premature deaths from air pollution could fall by about 50,000 to 100,000, scientists at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo (Cicero) have said.

The coronavirus pandemic has reduced demand for coal and other fossil fuels linked to a closure of factories and less road traffic, both in China and in other parts of the world.

Kristin Aunan, a senior researcher at Cicero, said the possibility of reduced deaths from air pollution was in no way to detract from the severity of the pandemic.

“But we have to remember that air pollution kills people, especially vulnerable elderly people,” she told Climate Home News.

Putting the brakes on – Climate Weekly

So far coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has infected about 170,000 people worldwide and killed 6,500, with cases surging daily in many nations.

Aunan was the lead researcher of a 2018 study that estimated that between 1.15 million and 1.24 million people in China die from air pollution every year.

And the World Health Organisation (WHO) says air pollution kills about seven million people worldwide annually by causing heart disease, lung cancers and respiratory infections.

The Cicero researchers focused on fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, described by the WHO as the most harmful type of pollution of 2.5 micrometres or less across.

Earlier this month, Copernicus, the EU’s Earth Observation Programme, said satellite measurements showed that levels of PM2.5 pollution over China in February 2020 were down by about 20-30% compared to the average for the same month in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Based on those observations, Aunan and her colleagues wrote that if PM2.5 concentrations “over China remains at a level 20-30% below the baseline situation for a full year, the annual avoided number of premature deaths could amount to 54,000 – 109,000”.

That would correspond to a reduction in deaths from air pollution of 5% to 10%.

She cautioned that the figures were highly uncertain and that the impact would be far less if China’s economy recovers quickly, especially if Beijing seeks to stimulate the economy by burning more fossil fuels.

Nasa has also cited evidence that the decline in air pollution over China “is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus”.

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A Copernicus official said the agency would issue satellite images of Italy this week to illustrate how a nationwide lockdown has affected air pollution in the European nation hardest hit by coronavirus.

The European Public Health Alliance, a non-governmental group advocating better health for all, said in a statement that all air pollution aggravated risks in Europe from the virus.

“Covid-19 has also highlighted the need for a long-term EU strategy to address Europe’s invisible epidemic of non-communicable diseases, and measures to tackle air pollution,” it said.

It added that “patients suffering from conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, or respiratory diseases have proved to be particularly vulnerable to the outbreak”.

The European Commission says that more than 400,000 people die prematurely from air pollution every year in the EU.

Aunan told CHN she hoped efforts to combat coronavirus would also put a spotlight on wider health risks such as pollution and climate change, which is disrupting food and water supplies with heatwaves, droughts and floods.

“When we look into the future for climate change and air pollution… all these risk factors are continuously taking lives,” she said.

The post Coronavirus: China’s economic slowdown curbs deadly air pollution appeared first on Climate Home News.

The 450 MW coal power plant project in Tuzla, Bosnia, which is due to replace existing ageing units, and a planned 350MW plant in the Serbian town of Kostolac could become stumbling blocks for the two nations’ efforts to join the EU.

The plants highlight China’s growing role as a source for coal projects in the Balkans shunned by western lenders because of concerns about climate change and pollution. The Bosnian plant has been described in Chinese media as part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia with Europe and Africa that revives ties along the ancient Silk Road.

Previously unpublished documents, obtained and translated by Unearthed and examined by experts, show the feasibility studies used to seek and obtain approval for the power stations massively under-estimate the costs the plants will face once Bosnia and Serbia join the EU’s carbon market, a condition for joining the bloc.

That could leave local taxpayers on the hook, since parliaments in both countries have provided state guarantees to China on the loan repayments of hundreds of millions of euros. Serbia is negotiating to join the EU, perhaps in 2025, after applying in 2009. Bosnia is further back in the queue after applying in 2016.

We won’t let Germany build a new coal power plant

Frede Hvelplund, professor of Energy Planning at Denmark’s Aalborg University, said the reports were grossly flawed.

He called the Bosnian feasibility study “absurd”, saying it under-estimated the costs of emitting carbon dioxide in the EU by assuming a price that is less than a third of the current €25 a tonne on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Hvelplund, who publishes academic work on best practice for feasibility studies, said the errors in carbon pricing alone are “enough to say the study is totally wrong”. The Serbian project similarly used unrealistic projections.

China’s ExIm Bank and other partners backing the Bosnian and Serbian projects did not respond to requests for comment about the assumptions underpinning the projects.

Molly Scott Cato, a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party from the South West of England, said the Chinese-backed coal plants made no sense.

“King Coal is dead – it is a stranded economic asset and environmental disaster. If we are to prevent climate chaos we must leave it in the ground,” she said. “Any country negotiating to join the EU must meet Paris Agreement standards on carbon reductions and any energy investments should be viable at the current ETS carbon price.”

Multiple coal deals emerge from China’s ‘green’ investment summit

Coal-fired power plants are typically designed to last 25-40 years.  Conventional coal-fired plants will have to be phased out worldwide by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Experts said the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) produced for the plants also failed to detail either local or cross-border pollution.

A study by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) found that in 2016 alone, 16 coal plants in the Western Balkan states released as much sulphur dioxide as the entire fleet of the EU’s 250 installations. The alliance estimated air pollution from the 16 plants caused 3,900 premature deaths a year, many in neighbouring EU nations.

Kristina Stojak, 36, keeps a collection of asthma inhalers on her sitting room table in Divkovici, near Tuzla in Bosnia, for her two young boys. Lung problems are common in Tuzla, largely due to the city’s existing 715MW lignite-fired power plant which pumps out 51,000 tonnes of toxic sulphur dioxide per year.

Separately, waste ash and coal slag – the products of combustion – are pumped into landfill sites, one of which is a kilometre from Stojak’s house. The wind scatters ash from the dump, called Jezero II.

Every day Stojak sweeps a layer of fine grey flakes from her balcony. “I would honestly like to move somewhere else – but my husband is staying here to fight the problem. I think we will all suffer,” she said.

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The Bosnian government has not issued a study on contamination of air, soil and water by Jezero II and similar landfills, but a 2015 study by researchers from Prague’s University of Chemistry and Technology found nickel, chromium, cadmium, arsenic and mercury in soil samples taken nearby. Higher levels of cadmium – a carcinogen – were found in onions grown locally.

As part of plans for the new 450MW unit at the Tuzla power plant, state-owned utility Elektroprivreda Bosne-i-Hercegovine (EPBiH) is now pushing for permission to create a new ash dump nearby at a site called Sicki Brod.

The proposed landfill is at the site of a former coal mine which has been rehabilitated by local activists over the past 20 years. Today, it is surrounded by orchards and residents swim in a lake. Proposed amendments to the Tuzla Canton spatial plan to accommodate EPBiH’s proposals describe the transformation of the lake into an ash dump as a “recultivation” of the site.

“It sounds funny but it’s serious. Somebody should lose their diploma for that,” said Denis Zisko, of Tuzla’s Centre for Ecology and Energy, which shared the Bosnian project’s documents with Unearthed. His NGO has mounted a challenge to the amendments to block EPBiH from getting an environmental license for the dump.

The Tuzla plant, called Blok 7, is touted by politicians as a long-term solution to Bosnia’s energy supply. Construction costs will be covered mostly by a €613 million ($683m) loan from China’s ExIm Bank, signed in 2017. The majority of the construction will be carried out by China’s Gezhouba Group, with the smaller percentage going to local firms.

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The project has been beset from the beginning by criticisms it was not viable. It initially attracted the interest of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and Hitachi Mitsubishi in 2014. They ran a feasibility study before pulling out, citing political instability and unprofitability.

In May 2018, Bosnia’s Institut Za Gradjevinarstvo issued a feasibility study for Blok 7 that concluded that EPBiH will be able to repay the Chinese loan as well as turning a “significant profit”.

But that study, instrumental in securing political support, predicts that the plant would not need to pay for carbon emissions on the ETS at all until 2034. It then predicts cost beyond 2034 using the average of the ETS price per tonne of CO2 from 2006 to 2018 – only €7.10 – as the predicted baseline, subject to an annual growth rate of 2%.

But the CO2 price has climbed sharply since 2018 and is now around €25. The European Commission wants to extend carbon pricing to reach net zero emissions by 2050, a strategy intended to shift the EU’s energy from fossil fuels to renewables.

“I don’t think you’ll find anyone in the EU who believes the price of carbon will fall to €7.10 by 2034. The suggestion is either bias or stupidity,” said Hvelplund at Aalborg University.

Bosnia and Serbia are members of the European Energy Community – the international body that extends the EU’s energy market and rules across Southeastern Europe. Both will need to sign up to the ETS by the time they join the EU.

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In Serbia, the 350MW unit called B3 in Kostolac is also in the advanced stages of planning, with Chinese finance agreed in 2014. A feasibility study performed in 2015 also dismisses potential pricing of carbon emissions – partially on the grounds the state will pay for them.

“Cost of permits for emitting CO2 were not included in the costs … because it is assumed that state of Serbia will overtake eventual obligation of payment,” the study says.

A related sensitivity analysis, however, does include costs per tonne of CO2 of $6.55 and $13.10 (€5.89 to €11.78) and says the project would lose money at the higher price.

Meanwhile, the environmental impact of expanding the existing Drmno coal mine to supply the new B3 unit, from nine million tonnes of coal production per year to 12, is also not considered in the documentation.

Zvezdan Kalmar of Serbian environmental NGO Cekor, which has challenged the plant’s environmental impact assessments in court alongside NGO CEE Bankwatch Network, said: “I see the study as false and misleading, and not showing the danger of this project to the public budget.“

Cekor shared the Serbian project’s documents with Unearthed.

Chinese offers of loans for coal projects have caught the eyes of politicians in Bosnia and Serbia since the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank have halted funding for coal projects, citing environmental concerns.

“China can provide long-term lending with low interest rates, and asks very few follow up questions,” said Jens Bastian, formerly chief economist for the European Agency for Reconstruction and author of the EBRD report Balkan Silk Road.

“But when you start reading the fine print, you need to ask questions.”

This article was co-published with Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s award-winning journalism project.

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The threat came as Indonesia faced pressure from its neighbours to douse the blazes, which are blamed for sending air quality plummeting in parts of Southeast Asia.

“I’ve told the military and police chiefs to sack people who don’t tackle forest fires,” Widodo told a ministers meeting on the issue in Jakarta.

“We’ll be humiliated in front of other countries if we can’t solve this haze problem.

“No matter how small the fire is, put it out immediately,” he added.

Indonesian authorities are deploying thousands of extra personnel to prevent a repeat of the 2015 fires, which were the worst for two decades and choked the region in haze for weeks.

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The blazes are an annual problem during the dry season but they have worsened in recent weeks. Many of the worst fires occur in carbon-rich peat, which is highly combustible once drained to make way for agricultural plantations.

Widodo said the 2015 fires caused some 221 trillion rupiah ($15.5 billion) in financial losses and burned about 2.6 million hectares of land.

“That should never happen again,” Widodo said.

Officials from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei discussed the pollution issue at an annual meeting in Brunei which wrapped up Tuesday, Malaysia’s environment ministry said.

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Malaysia will ask participants to “take pro-active action” to make sure that forest and peat fires in Southeast Asian countries can be controlled to avoid haze, the ministry said in a statement ahead of the gathering.

Malaysia said smog had appeared around Kuala Lumpur and on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia due to fires on Indonesia’s Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo island.

Air quality dipped to unhealthy levels in some parts of Malaysia last week. Conditions were better Tuesday afternoon, with air quality recorded as “moderate” in many places.

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Skies over Singapore looked hazy with the environment agency saying that air quality was moderate.

Last week, Indonesia sent almost 6,000 extra personnel from the military, police and disaster agency to fight the blazes while an emergency has been declared in six provinces.

“We’re working hard and doing everything we can to stop the fires so [the haze] will not reach neighbouring countries,” Indonesian disaster agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said.

The post Indonesian government under pressure to stamp out toxic haze appeared first on Climate Home News.

The government’s 25-year environment plan, published a year ago, sets out goals to clean the country’s air and water, increase its woodland, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimise waste, among other things. Now London is preparing an environment bill to replace European Union laws and regulation after it leaves the bloc.

That legislation will be key to making sure Britain doesn’t dilute its environmental protections from EU levels, and to replacing the European Commission’s policing role with a national watchdog, the independent audit office said.

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While agreeing with the government’s argument that Brexit offers opportunities to boost environmental protections, the NAO pointed to causes for concern too.

The upside is that Brexit could allow the government’s department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) to review the way performance is reported and monitored and assess whether it “all adds value” to broader UK goals, it said. The downside: Defra still needs to talk to other parts of the government to coordinate the approach.

“There is no clear, single point of ownership for performance as a whole across government on the 25-year environment plan, and more work is needed to embed environmental metrics into government’s core planning and performance monitoring,” the NAO said.

The prospect of the UK crashing out without a deal that would cover continued environmental stewardship was increased on Tuesday after prime minister Theresa May lost a vote in the parliament on the deal she had negotiated with the EU.

The new environmental watchdog is needed to fill a potential governance gap after Britain leaves the EU, since the European Commission has played a role in holding the government to account on environmental measures including air quality. However, indications in the government’s draft of the environment bill – that Defra would fund the watchdog and appoint its chair – raise questions about its independence, the auditors said.

Labour MP Mary Creagh, chair of the parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, welcomed the NAO’s warning that environmental protections should not be weakened after Brexit.

“The 25-year environment plan must work across government departments to ensure transport, business and local government take their responsibility on the environment,” she said.

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Environment secretary Michael Gove and May have both said the UK will have more power to fund and protect its environment after it leaves the EU. “We will use this opportunity to strengthen and enhance the protections our countryside, rivers, coastline and wildlife habitats enjoy, and develop new methods of agricultural and fisheries support which put the environment first,” May said in the 25-year plan.

Environmental advocates, however, worry the UK will lose backup measures and oversight from Brussels – which London is free to build upon – and that the environmental watchdog will lack the power to penalise any shortfalls.

The NAO said the UK’s track record and future outlook on environmental protections are mixed.

It’s a leader in developing data sources to report on progress towards the UN’s sustainable development goals, and its 2008 climate change law established a “robust framework” for measuring both the reduction of emissions and adaptation to changes in climate, it said. However, there is still a timelag in the data the government publishes on the sustainable development goals and there are questions about how well this information feeds into decision-making.

Climate Home News’ reporting on Brexit is supported by a grant from the European Climate Foundation. Please read our editorial guidelines for more details.

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In the strategy released on Monday, the UK government sought to show how it will realise the “Green Brexit” championed by the prominent Leave supporter and environment secretary Michael Gove.

“We will be able to set out a new direction for our environment, based on rigorous scientific research and underpinned by the legal principles that have done so much to improve our environment in the past,” Gove said in an introduction to the clean air strategy. “It is my profound hope that we will use the opportunity presented by leaving the EU to become a world leader in environmental excellence.”

Campaigners welcomed the air pollution limits set out in the strategy, but criticised the government for not giving enough details on how and when it will meet the limits. The question is if and how London will be held accountable without the European Union looking on, they say.

“Under EU law, we have an air quality directive that, as a member state of the EU, we’re expected to meet. Once we’re out of the EU, there will be no air quality directive or legislative framework that at the moment provides checks and balances,” said Jason Torrance, clean air cities director at the UK100, a network of local governments promoting clean energy.

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The strategy commits to tightening the limit on fine particulate matter across the country to an annual average of 10 micrograms – as advised by the World Health Organization – and to halve the number of people living with air pollution above that level by 2025, compared to 2016.

The government says it has already reached the EU’s standard of 25 μg and is on track to meet 20 μg when it takes effect in 2020.

To cut particulate matter further, the government says it will restrict wood- and coal-burning fires and stoves, which account for 38% of the country’s emissions. It also intends to tackle agriculture, which emits 88% of the country’s ammonia, by helping farmers invest in cleaner infrastructure and equipment and creating a code of good practice.

However particulate matter is not the only dangerous pollutant that hovers over Brexit Britain. The UK was one of six countries that the European Commission referred to the bloc’s Court of Justice last May for failing to limit NO2, in large part from diesel cars, in line with EU legislation.

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On transport, the strategy points to an existing plan to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040 and upcoming strategies on aviation and the maritime sector for 2050. But those plans “are in total disarray”, said Simon Alcock, head of public affairs at the environmental law firm ClientEarth.

But while the strategy lists a number of commitments, green groups are concerned about how they will be implemented and monitored.

The UK’s existing legal limits on air pollution stem from EU law and will remain in its domestic legislation after Brexit, but they risk eventually being loosened, according to ClientEarth.

The environment bill the government is developing, along with a new watchdog, could set stronger legal standards and penalise any shortfalls. But it’s not yet clear if it will.

The post UK anti-pollution drive undermined by leaving EU, say campaigners appeared first on Climate Home News.

That is one of the key messages of an anti-air pollution campaign launched by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Tuesday.

At the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first global conference on health and air pollution in Geneva, she joined forces with its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to call for action.

It is closely linked to the climate fight, she told Climate Home News: “It makes the whole challenge that we are facing on climate change or greenhouse gases personal. It brings it down to my personal experience, it brings it down to the lungs of my children, it brings it down to the brain development of my child. It so happens that sources of greenhouse gases are the same sources of local pollutants.”

Nine out of ten children worldwide are breathing toxic air, which harms their health and development, according to a report released by the WHO. It accounts for one in 10 deaths among infants under five-years-old, the report said.

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The “Every Breath Matters” campaign argues “clean air is a human right” and by 2030, everyone should be breathing clean air.

While it does not make demands of specific polluters, the campaign highlights coal burning, dirty diesel vehicles and slash-and-burn agriculture as sources of air pollution to tackle.

The aim is to raise the profile of existing anti-pollution efforts and give them “the size of megaphone that they deserve,” said Figueres. She has recruited actor Leonardo DiCaprio as an advocate.

Tedros described air pollution as “the new tobacco” in terms of its public health impact, in a comment article for the Guardian.

At a high-level section of the conference on Thursday, ministers, mayors and leaders of international organisations are expected to announce commitments to tackle the problem.

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