The growing cries for a moratorium on coal-fired power stations have got that bit louder over the past month, as plans to build new power stations get the go-ahead. There are threats that Europe’s main climate policy could be under threat, researchers claimed earlier this month.
The European Union has set its national components an objective of reducing their emissions output from the power sector and heavy industry by 21 per cent by 2020 through its much publicised Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The scheme itself has been in place since 2005 and puts a figurehead over the carbon that businesses can use and thus creates a market for carbon, generating a relationship with industrial activity and the gradual reduction of total emissions.
A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says that the impetus of the scheme is under threat from 75 proposed new coal plants across Europe, including seven in the UK. This was following efforts made by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), in July this year, who raised ‘considerable concern’ over the use of carbon and storage as a ‘fig leaf’ to give coal the go-ahead. IPPR joined the fray with a call for a two-year moratorium on coal investment, warning building new coal plants could risk the collapse of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The study arrived before a week of protesting outside one of the seven prospected sites, in Kingsnorth, Kent.
IPPR followed up their initial plea with claim that even if a proportion of the 75 were built, the EU emissions reduction target would only then be achievable through a widespread national deployment of the as yet untried technology of Carbon Capture Storage (CCS).
Despite CSS holding the potential to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations by up to 90 per cent, some industry experts warn that at current rates of development the technology at hand will still not be viable until the year of target deadlines, 2020.
It is in the wake of such reports that IPPR have emphatically called for the Europe-wide freeze on coal investment for a minimum of two years in order to keep ETS targets alive and achievable. This appeal, as well as an acceleration of CSS timetables, has been met by the Government with unsatisfactory results.
The global consulting and engineering firm Poyry demonstrated that the core argument in the Government’s pro-capital policy – that being, new fossil generation is paramount in the steps to ‘keep the lights on’ – is in fact flawed. Poyry’s research concludes that planned renewable energy efficiency moves will be more than adequate to maintain electricity supplies until 2020 at the earliest.
Matthew Lockwood, senior research fellow at IPPR, adds: ‘The EU’s carbon trading scheme is the central pillar of our climate policy, not only for reducing emissions but also for building a global climate change agreement,’
‘However, that pillar is still weak, and IPPR’s report shows that the scheme would collapse in the event of a new coal rush. Europe needs to do two things urgently freeze conventional coal investment until we get greater certainty, and accelerate the development of new carbon capture technologies.’
