Last week, coal magnate and (former?) Trump favorite Bob Murray told Axios that he’s lost faith that Trump will make coal great again. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen,” Murray said when asked if the president was still going to carry forward a plan to bail out failing coal plants. “I don’t know. It’s the government. They are still studying that.”
And if they couldn’t get something done with both chambers of Congress, odds are only looking worse now that Democrats will take control of the House. While that may not have a direct effect on what the executive branch chooses to do, it does mean that whatever decisions get made will be put under the microscope of congressional oversight.
So while coal use in the US continues to drop, it seems international orders are keeping the industry afloat. Apparently, that’s “the only thing that’s saved a lot of us in the coal industry,” Murray told Axios, as coal exports for his company went from 6% of production last year to 30% this year.
This is especially relevant in Poland right now, as it is displaying literal lumps of coal at the UN climate negotiations this year--not exactly surprising given that several coal companies are sponsoring COP24.
And it's not just the conference that’s filled with dirty coal: Poland has the worst air quality of any country in Europe thanks to coal, which accounts for 80% of the country's electricity. When temperatures drop, people are advised to stay indoors--not because of the cold, but because as people turn up their furnaces the air quality drops notably.
Poland isn’t the only one getting in on the coal action at COP this year, though. Last month, Reuters reported that the Trump administration is planning to hold a side-event promoting fossil fuels, including coal, at COP24. The administration held a similar event last year at COP23, which was widely mocked and attracted protests.
However, if the international market is keeping coal afloat, the industry might be in trouble. A new study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that developing countries are leading in renewable energy investment and development, and have slashed their plans to build new coal plants nearly in half. Deniers’ big argument that renewables are too expensive and coal’s the only way for the developing world to afford to turn the lights on appears to be debunked by reality.
That shift can even be seen in Poland. The Ministry of Energy announced last week that the country plans to cut the amount of energy it gets from coal to 60% by 2030, and it plans to have 30,000 MW of offshore wind and solar by 2040.
Trump and the pro-pollution set at Poland seem to have coalesced around coal, but over the long term? The winds of change are blowing.
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