Shuttering the world’s dirtiest power plants could help to eliminate vast amounts of planet-heating emissions that are threatening international climate goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).
From India to Poland, these super-polluting power plants most often run on coal and emit tens of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
But simply shutting them down is no easy feat.
Context spoke with workers and experts across the globe about the social and economic barriers to bringing an end to “super polluter” coal-fired power plants that have a disproportionate impact on climate change.
“There is a small set of very egregious emitters that are responsible for the lion’s share of carbon pollution emitted by the sector,” said Don Grant, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who focuses on high-polluting power plants.
According to his research, the top 10 highest emitting power plants in 2018 released carbon at rates up to 75 per cent higher per unit of electrical power than other plants in their countries, underscoring the importance of focusing the climate fight on super-polluting coal-fired plants.
Analysis of coal power often focuses on national-level emissions or specific companies, which can miss the local contexts of the world’s largest polluters and the development priorities they support.
Many superpolluting plants, for example, are in China and developing Asian countries, where growing electricity demand is fuelling reliance on coal-fired power.
“When you replace coal, you need to replace the services that it provides,” said Carlos Fernández Alvarez, chief coal expert at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “If you close the coal mine, life in that town won’t be the same.”
Meeting global climate targets to restrict global warming to 1.5°C requires a rapid shift away from coal, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
At last year’s UN COP28 climate talks in Dubai, world leaders agreed for the first time to a “just, orderly and equitable” transition away from fossil fuels, and will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next month to discuss how to finance developing countries’ efforts.
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When you replace coal, you need to replace the services that it provides. If you close the coal mine, life in that town won’t be the same.
Carlos Fernández Alvarez, chief coal expert, International Energy Agency
But governments have to balance these commitments with keeping the lights on, with global electricity demand expected to grow by 4 per cent this year, according to the IEA.
Phase out or phase down?
India and China were home to 52 of the world’s top 100 polluting plants in 2022, according to satellite data from Climate Trace, an organisation that uses technology to track greenhouse gas emissions.
The countries have yet to commit to phasing out coal, instead prioritising electricity supply, including a rapid expansion of renewable energy to complement coal.
For example, there are no plans yet to shut down India’s largest super polluting power plant, Vindhyachal STPP, given the 4.76 gigawatts it supplies to hundreds of thousands of homes in India each year.
The plant is piloting carbon capture to try to curb emissions, but these technologies are yet to be proven at a scale to make a meaningful dent in fossil fuel emissions.
It is harder for developing nations with growing populations and energy demands to move away from coal, said Dina Azhgaliyeva, a senior researcher at the Asian Development Bank Institute.
Developing Asian countries need investment to help build up battery storage technology to level out a varying supply, Azhgaliyeva said.
“Reliable energy supply is really important before shutting down power plants,” she said.
‘Just, orderly and equitable’
As countries consider the future of coal, Fernández Alvarez from the IEA said zoning in on individual plants demonstrated the scale of the just transition challenge.
In coal-intensive regions, the entire local economy may rely on the industry, presenting the challenge of not just finding new jobs for those directly engaged in the sector, but also the many others in the supply chain and services.
In Belchatow, Poland, for example, the most polluting power plant in Europe is the biggest employer in the region, with some 20,000 people working in the plant, mines and other coal-linked sectors.
A region developed around a single industry needs to diversify, said Antonina Scheer, a policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
“When it comes to coal, if there’s no other natural resources there, it’s not obvious what you do with that area,” said Scheer. It is also hard to attract finance for reskilling workers, she said.
Funding the transition
Financing the shift away from coal remains a key challenge for leaders at the next COP meeting in Azerbaijan.
It can be hard to get financing to close plants, which may have debts or power purchase agreements to supply electricity for decades to come, especially for countries with younger plants expected to generate returns on investment.
While clean energy attracts investment because it has clear returns, shuttering power plants is costly and often falls to the public sector, the Grantham Institute’s Scheer said.
“The closure is always much more difficult to find financing,” she said.
One option for generating finance is the burgeoning carbon credit market that offers companies credits in exchange for money towards removing carbon from the atmosphere.
In the Rockefeller Foundation’s Coal to Clean Credits initiative, for example, future carbon saved by early retirement of power plants generates credits to cover costs like lost revenue to asset owners, investing in clean power and worker compensation.
Coal-dependent low-income countries such as Vietnam and South Africa are also seeking investment from wealthy governments through Just Energy Transition Partnerships.
But so far, progress has been slow, with poorer nations unwilling to transition away from coal without significant grants from richer countries.
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