Aussie coal exports 2nd biggest “carbon bomb”

A new report by consultancy Ecofys for Greenpeace, called Point of No Return, details 14 proposed fossil fuel projects, dubbed “carbon bombs”, that would together effectively lock in dangerous climate change.

If the 14 projects go ahead, they would add 6.3 Gt/year (greater than present US emissions) to global CO₂ emissions in 2020, a 20% increase at a time when we urgently need to cut global emissions as fast as possible. They would add 300 Gt CO₂ to the atmosphere by 2050, about a third of the carbon budget for 2010-2050 required for a 75% chance of avoiding 2°C of global warming, the level which the world’s governments have agreed to prevent. They would keep us on the business-as-usual pathway that leads to an unimaginably catastrophic 6°C by 2100. Thus it is imperative that these fossil fuels be left in the ground.

Here is the full list of the 14 projects and their associated emissions:

Note the number for US shale gas emissions could be an underestimate depending on the rate of fugitive emissions.

The second largest of these “carbon bombs” (after coal mining expansion in northwestern Chinese provinces) is the planned expansion of Australia’s coal exports. Emissions from the burning of Australian coal exports already dwarf emissions within Australia’s borders. Proposed expansion plans would more than double these exports by 2025, to 408 Mt/year above today’s levels, producing 1.2 Gt/year CO₂ (three times Australia’s domestic CO₂ emissions). This includes 330 Mt/year from the Galilee Basin, a new region being opened up for mining. Other new Australian coal exports would come from the Bowen Basin, Hunter Valley, Gunnedah Basin, and Surat Basin. Companies involved are Xstrata, BHP Billiton, Peabody, Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Vale, Yancoal, Waratah Coal, Macmines Austasia, Adani, and GVK. The coal would be exported mainly through proposed terminals and ports along the coastline of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, most importantly at Abbot Point and Hay Point. (The total capacity of proposed coal export ports is even greater than the proposed new output: over a billion tonnes of coal per year, or 2-3 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year.)

These projects are progressing because humanity is not limiting its demand for fossil fuels. 1,200 new coal-fired power plants are planned around the world, three-quarters of them in China and India. Coal-fired power is also resurging in Europe, partly due to the failure of the EU ETS, and partly because shale gas is forcing the US coal industry to shift from domestic consumption to exports.

One thing that strikes me about the report is that in many of the projects listed above, the carbon will be mined in one place and burned in another. Currently, the climate policies of governments focus on constraining emissions within their borders. That is not enough in a world where UN negotiations have not only failed to agree on an international regime of national emissions targets adding up to a safe global target, but have even agreed to delay such an agreement until it will be too late. There needs to be much more attention given to constraining extraction of and global trade in fossil fuels. We have to stop “carbon bombs” from being mined in the first place.

In the Australian context, we must abandon our plans to expand coal exports and instead start phasing them out.