Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Oxfam have written a report which claims coal power will create more poverty. In my opinion this claim is a disgusting direct attack on the coal fired industrialisation, jobs and opportunities currently lifting a growing number of people out of chronic poverty in Asia and Africa.
More coal equals more poverty: Transforming our world through renewable energy
executive summary
Tackling poverty and inequality means bringing an end to the fossil fuel era, beginning with no new coal and supporting renewable energy for all.
More coal will drive more people into poverty through the devastating consequences of climate change and the direct toll of coal mining and burning on local communities, including loss of land, pollution, and health impacts.
With the vast majority of energy-poor households in developing countries living beyond the reach of the electricity grid, coal is categorically unsuited to addressing the challenges of energy poverty. Renewables are the clear answer to bringing electricity to those who currently live without it, and are already bringing transformative benefits for communities around the world.
Recognition of coal’s immense toll on vulnerable communities and why more coal will entrench poverty has been largely absent from the battle over climate and energy policy in Australia.
Also missing from the debate has been an acknowledgement of coal’s inability to meet the energy needs of the world’s
poor, and an understanding of the scale and pace of action necessary from Australia to meet our obligations under the Paris Agreement and help limit warming to 1.5°C — a matter of survival for many vulnerable countries.
As an international development agency working in more than 90 countries, Oxfam has observed directly the impacts of coal and climate change on communities worldwide, as well as how renewable energy is changing lives, raising incomes, improving health and education, and powering inclusive development.
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Read more: https://www.oxfam.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/More-Coal-Equals-More-Poverty.pdf
The point Oxfam miss is only poor people are vulnerable. Coal makes poor people rich, by allowing their nations to industrialise. The rise of China, the industrial revolution in Europe, the rise of coal fired industry in America – the evidence that coal powered industrialisation leads to wealth is indisputable.
Rich people are not vulnerable to climate change. Rich people can afford tornado proof houses, and decent sea walls. When their crops fail, they can buy more food from elsewhere.
It is not possible to run a modern industrial society off non-hydro renewables. You can start industrialisation using hydro-power, but as industrial demand rises, you rapidly hit a point when water resources are stretched – society has to choose between industrial and agricultural users. This is currently happening in parts of Africa. The only way to solve this problem without hurting your economy is to build cheap power plants. King coal is still the cheapest non-hydro power source. As formerly poor countries like rapidly industrialising Tanzania have discovered, coal is the proven route to escaping long term poverty.
Over 60% of Africans without Power – Will Build Coal Power Plants
AUGUST 12, 2014
President Obama wants to control the use of coal abroad for electricity generation, but he is meeting with opposition. From developed countries such as Japan and Germany to developing countries such as China and India, coal is being used for electricity generation at an increasing rate. Even Africa, with over 60 percent of its population without power, has told the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit last week that it will use coal to provide its residents with power, just as the developed world used the fuel for industrialization. As Tanzanian Minister of Power Sospeter Muhongo said, “We in Africa, we should not be in the discussion of whether we should use coal or not. In my country of Tanzania, we are going to use our natural resources because we have reserves which go beyond 5 billion tons.”[i] His country currently uses so little coal that at present rates, its supplies would last 50,000 years.
Tanzania is a good example of an industrializing nation in Africa that is attempting to move its population forward, and provide the benefits that electrification brings. Currently, only 24 percent of the population is connected to the grid (and only 7 percent of rural residents), and in order to develop clean water systems, pumping capacity is needed.[ii] The government’s goal is to lift per capita income from its current $640 per annum to at least $3000. Electrical access is key to this goal.
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Another proof that coal is the solution to poverty, is the energy mix used for Aluminium smelting.
Aluminium is utterly essential for our modern life – it is used in everything from kitchen tinfoil, corrosion resistant window frames, the bodywork of lightweight cars, aircraft bodies, its a long list.
But Aluminium smelting is incredibly energy intensive. Aluminium is smelted by running a gigantic electric current through molten ore – there is no other known industrial means of smelting Aluminium. Aluminium smelters are always looking for a way to reduce their energy costs, because their razor thin profits utterly depend on having cheaper power than their competitors. Aluminium smelters have no ideological commitment to a particular source of energy. If wind power or solar power provided a cheaper alternative, they would not let some misplaced loyalty to fossil fuels stand in the way of a bigger annual bonus.
As you can see from the graph at the top of the page, Aluminium smelters choose hydro first, coal second. Renewables don’t even feature on the list.
Oxfam’s attack against coal in my opinion amounts to a campaign of economic sabotage against the industrial development, against the alleviation of the long term poverty of the poorest people of the world.
For shame, Oxfam.
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If they gave a good goddamn about the people they pretend to care about they would be talking about ensuring first world levels of emission controls on these power plants. Coal, gas, whatever fired but they are going to be fossil fired.
Didn’t the Chinese just launch an initiative about selling Chinese infrastructure globally? My guess is that Oxfam has Chinese influence only insofar as the occasional press release.
This and several other charities which started out with good ideas and plans have unfortunately become nothing but political lobby groups and I have stopped my support for them. They have a very dismissive way of responding when told why they are are no longer getting any money from me which is sad as they still do some good.
The Duke of Edinburgh cut his ties with WWF for very similar reasons.
James Bull
The Duke has not cut his ties with the WWF, for any reasons…
.. though he is just now retiring from public life and active involvement in all the charities he supports due to advance age.
One argument which I found resonates with some with Abrahamic religious backgrounds is : Why did g-d put all those resources there if not for human use ? Is it another cosmic joke like thou shall not eat from the tree of knowledge ?
You can’t run a modern society on hydro either. There just isn’t enough of it to go around.
Depends on geography, though. Quebec, for example.
I’m thinking globally. Small localized areas might be able to do it.
Yeah, although I think Quebec does have other power generation sources also, possibly because it sells so much hydro electricity to the northern US and possibly other provinces.
Does Quebec produce enough hydro power, to power all of Canada?
even BC which is 90% mountains and rivers has thermal backup for hydro. google burrard thermal.
The lefties have been taken over by the green blob. Oxfam should be required to study real anti-poverty programs, like the US Rural Electrification Program in the 1930’s. It does seem that Oxfam wants to keep the poor poor, to keep their business model in operation.
For information, the author and contributors to the report are identified as:
Acknowledgements: Oxfam Australia acknowledges the assistance of Amanda Banks,
Kelly Dent, Rachel Ball, Ula Majewski and Cate Anderson in preparing this report.
Author: Simon Bradshaw, Climate Change Advocacy Lead, Oxfam Australia
A few years ago the Veterans Administration hospital in Oklahoma City, USA installed a solar array reportedly to save money. The pay back period was about 40 years, i.e. never.
From the article: “More coal will drive more people into poverty through the devastating consequences of climate change”
There have been no devastating consequences from CO2. This is a figment of alarmists’ imaginations. There is no evidence human-generated CO2 has caused the climate to change. There is very little reason to believe CO2 will ever cause devastating climate consequences or even changes we can measure.
CO2 keeps rising. Temperatures have not. Don’t know about you, but it’s been a rather cool spring here where I live. Nice mild weather here in the “hottest year evah!”
NGO’s like OxFam & GreenPeace are just human hating groups that thrive on human suffering.
There is no climate change in the tropics! You worried too much about the Arctic and now you are stuck with it. So, if I’m a Nigerian, am I going to raise my temp by 0.1C (tropical disenhancement) which evil should I choose: poverty/disease/early death or prosperity and suffer the 0.1C increase? Drill ye tarriers drill. These people aren’t stupid.
An average temp increase globally would see many more days in Nigeria with temps well in the 40s centigrade and make life very difficult.
Griffie, average global temperatures tells us nothing about Nigerian temperatures. Get a grip; latitudinal variations, anyone?
I think Africans are the best qualified to decide what they “need”, Oxfam and the rest of the ‘do-gooders’ should butt out.
Can you even make aluminium for solar panels using solar power? I doubt it.
“More coal will drive more people into poverty through the devastating consequences of climate change and the direct toll of coal mining and burning on local communities, including loss of land, pollution, and health impacts.”
Prove it.
If fossil fuels were banned in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, millions, possibly tens of millions, would be dead before the end of next winter. Is that the plan?
Europe can demand that Germany stop building their 23 new lignite power plants and go coal-free. Make for us a demonstration! Show us how a coal-free national grid works in an industrialised country.
Germany has now finished each and every one of their new power plants (which weren’t all lignite). They planned these in 2008 to replace nuclear power plants, not to back up renewables. I believe there is one which has not yet gone online – and may never do so.
There are no more going to be built – and do note they retired a number of old power plants when they brought in the new plant.
You may note that they now have a list of coal plants that will close – not a large one, but they’ve started.
So nothing to demand!
The actual evidence is that without coal, literally everyone would be living in poverty except the tiniest minority of the wealthy. Not 1% but more like .1%. Several billion of us wouldn’t be alive at all. All the world’s trees would be gone. Likewise, every edible thing on the face of the Earth and in the seas would have been consumed. For those of us alive it would be a bare existence of cold, hunger, violence, disease, brutal endless work and early, miserable death. We should pray to coal!
“More coal will drive more people into poverty through the devastating consequences of climate change
and the direct toll of coal mining and burning on local communities, including loss of land, pollution,
and health impacts.”
What they forgot to mention was the name of the planet where that is true because on this one every nation that has exploited coal has benefited from an increase in forestation, an improvement of air and water quality via increased wealth and an increase of life expectancy.
When Oxfam doesn’t get a donation they’ll know it was from me.
I do wish that people throwing around stuff like “devastating consequences of climate change” would: Accurately describe their supposed climate change; clearly post any “devastating” consequences (past, present and future) that logically result from such supposed change; and provide scientific proof that likely increases in future global temperatures would result in “devastating consequences.”
I suspect that “climate change” is just used as a scarier way of describing increasing temperatures. By no metric has the climate changed since at least 1900. Additionally, minor ups and downs in the gentle warming since the end of the Little Ice Age does not make “climate change.” Global climate remains benign.