In contrast to more positive recent reports on the world wide coal situation, Michael LePage continues to beat the drum of worry in NewScientist (16 January 2016, no paywall). He references an expert:
In fact, while coal use is falling in most rich countries, cheaper prices worldwide have prompted a remarkable coal renaissance, says economist Ottmar Edenhofer of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, Germany. If just a third of the planned coal power stations are built, we will burn through the remaining carbon budget for 2 °C of warming.
This correlates with this morning’s MPR Kerri Miller show, where a surge in sales of SUVs and trucks is attributed to the precipitous fall in gasoline prices, as is a drop in sales of electric vehicles, and is quite logical, of course: lower prices makes fuel consumption less of an element in selecting what the next new vehicle should be.
So what to do about these planned coal-fired plants? Well, seeing as they are still in the planning stages, we could attempt to spike the artillery before it fires: send the message that by the time these plants are built, the coal will be expensive, or worse, unavailable.
How can we do that? I suggest banning the export of coal from the United States. The United States is not the leading exporter of coal, according to the World Coal Association, but occupies the #4 spot, behind Indonesia, Australia, and Russia. However, as the most influential nation in the world, a dramatic gesture of this sort – even with loopholes for special situations and that sort of thing – would certainly bring the issue to the attention of other governments. While we won’t influence Russia, we can certainly influence Australia, who recently replaced a Prime Minister who blew with the wind with a new Prime Minister who is working towards a solution to climate change, and possibly Indonesia.
To this end, I have started a whitehouse.gov petition. If climate change concerns you, I hope you’ll sign it – and spread the word.
