Donald Trump has given his green light to coal. He signed Energy Independence which definitively buries Obama's policy of fighting climate change and facilitates authorizations for fossil energy sites. It's a really bizarre world, because the much sought after reduction of greenhouse gases should say thanks to the decline of coal. In fact, the construction of new power plants has decreased and so the reduction of 2 degrees of global temperatures is more realistic.
The good news, overshadowed by yesterday's US decision, comes from the 2017 "Tracking The Global Coal Plant Pipeline" report which certified that planned and financed coal plants are now in decline. Mostly geopolitical factors have influenced the austerity of investments. Those affected by the decisions of the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015. It is still too early to say whether the race for coal has stopped completely, especially due to the pushes and counter-thrusts coming from the USA. And there will certainly be protests.
The report's analysis of the scenario starts from China and the clear need to increase the demand for domestic energy production. In just one year, coal site concessions ready to be released fell by 85 per cent, with significant divestments. Hundreds of ready construction sites have been blocked. In addition to the decline of new buildings, the "Tracking" reveals a global disposal of 64 GW of power in just over two years, equal to the activity of 120 plants. The Chinese phenomenon has been mirrored in India, the other major power on the path of fossil energies. What happened in return?
A slow but progressive increase in renewables that should make planned coal-fired sites completely superfluous. For China, in particular, it is expected that the expansion of non-polluting sources, in the medium term, will completely fill the overall energy deficit. Something good in 2016, however, also happened in Europe. The United Kingdom recorded a sharp decrease in harmful emissions, precisely due to having limited the production of coal-fired plants, while Belgium definitively closed its last functional one at the end of the year. A picture that tends to be favorable to climate change, called into question by the US choice.
