Coal export proposals are number one threat to the climate in the US: Greenpeace

Coal export expansions in the United States would release more carbon pollution than any other new US fossil fuel project, according to a report Greenpeace released Tuesday.

The report, called “The Point of No Return,” used analysis from Ecofys, an authority on the link between climate policies and global temperature increase, to quantify the carbon pollution that would be released if governments and corporations move forward with 14 planned coal, oil and gas projects around the world. The collective global warming pollution from those projects would likely send the planet careening over a climate change cliff, causing far more droughts, storms and floods like the ones that devastated people around the world in 2012.

The proposed expansion of US coal exports would produce 420 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually by 2020 – or more carbon pollution than the entire country of Spain produces. Coal exports ranked as the number one threat to the climate of all planned US fossil fuel projects.

The majority of the emissions for the proposed US coal exports expansion come from the plans of three coal companies – Ambre Coal, Arch Coal, and Peabody Coal – to move publicly-owned coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana to five proposed ports in Oregon and Washington in order to ship it to Asia.

“Americans are increasingly saying no to coal, but the executives at Ambre, Arch and Peabody seem perfectly happy to pocket big profits overseas while bringing Americans more droughts, fires and storms caused by climate change,” said Greenpeace Coal Campaigner Kelly Mitchell.

The report showed that the earth has a “carbon budget,” the amount of carbon we can burn while still maintaining a chance of avoiding going over an irreversible climate cliff. The new coal, oil and gas projects in this report alone would consume 20 – 33% of our remaining carbon budget through 2050 if they’re allowed to proceed. The current heat wave in Australia, Superstorm Sandy and the ongoing US drought are all the result of the comparatively moderate climate change we’ve caused to date without these projects.

“Given the human suffering, destruction and economic turmoil of recent extreme weather events, a world with runaway climate change is a frightening prospect. We cannot let that be our legacy,” said Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo.

US government policy will be pivotal in deciding whether coal exports and other projects on the list go forward, including Arctic oil drilling (520 million tonnes CO2), deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (350 million tonnes CO2), and U.S. shale gas drilling or fracking (280 million tonnes CO2).*

In the Arctic, global warming is causing temperatures to rise faster than anywhere else on Earth, rapidly shrinking the ice at the top of the world. Instead of understanding that warning, oil companies like Shell, aided by the U.S. government, see the melting ice as a business opportunity to plunder the oil that is causing global warming in the first place.

The Ecofys analysis also identifies a pathway that offers a 75% chance of avoiding climate chaos, but only if companies, investors and governments abandon these 14 projects and begin rapidly transitioning from coal, oil and gas to clean energy.

—-

* The report’s estimates for fracking may be considerably conservative: Ecofys assumed a methane leakage rate for fracking of 3.9 %. A recent study by NOAA estimated that rate to be closer to 9 %, which would make the greenhouse gas emission estimates for US shale gas considerably higher than in this analysis.