KEY POINTS:
While New Zealand relies on renewables like hydro-power and, increasingly, wind to generate electricity, major Asian economies led by China and India are stuck with coal and will remain heavily dependent on this highly polluting source of energy for decades to come. As government negotiators from around the world try to agree this week on the outlines of a deal to reduce the impact of climate change, one of the biggest problems they must tackle is cutting the huge amounts of global warming emissions from burning coal to generate electricity and run heavy industries.
The officials, meeting in Bali under United Nations auspices until Friday, face a daunting task. The world's three largest coal-burning countries - China, the United States and India - oppose mandatory emissions reductions, arguing that it would undermine economic growth. In doing so, they foreclose the most radical but effective way to cut a heavily polluting energy source.
But an alternative path - developing low-emissions coal use - is a major opportunity as well as a major challenge for international co-operation. It can only be achieved if Asian and Western governments and companies work together for the common good.
Because coal is cheap and relatively abundant, it accounted for 25 per cent of the world's commercial energy supply last year, second only to oil. But due to its high carbon content, coal was responsible for about 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels, despite supplying only 32 per cent of fossil fuel energy. CO2 accounts for around 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions. It is the monster of global warming.
World coal consumption reached a record level last year, with China, the US, the European Union and India the top four users. But power generators in America and Europe are finding it more difficult to get regulatory approval to build new coal-fired plants, partly because of growing public concern about pollution and climate change.
Meanwhile, China and India have embarked on major expansions of industrial coal use, saying it is essential for growth, jobs and poverty alleviation despite the costs to the environment and public health.
Last month, China's biggest coal-burning plant, a 4000MW (megawatt) complex, started supplying electricity to factories and cities on the east coast. The official China Electricity Council said earlier this year that 90,000MW of coal-fired generating capacity, the equivalent of 90 nuclear power stations, had been added to the national grid in 2006 alone.
But as electricity supply catches up with demand in China and energy conservation measures take hold, the rate of power station construction will slow.
Even so, the International Energy Agency warned in its recent annual report that if unfettered growth in global energy demand continues, coal is set to grow most rapidly, driven largely by power sector demand in China and India. As a result, energy related emissions of CO2 would increase from 27BMT (billion metric tonnes) in 2005 to 42BMT in 2030 - a rise of 57 per cent.
China is expected to overtake the US by the end of this year to become the world's biggest emitter of CO2, while India is projected to become the third biggest source by around 2015. The IEA suggests that any new deal to curb global warming should include incentives for China, India and other rapidly emerging economies to use energy more efficiently and invest in cleaner power.
The UN is not the best forum for working on the details of low emissions coal technology. With almost 190 nations, it is too cumbersome. However, any agreement related to climate change would need the UN's seal of approval.
A better forum would be the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). Launched barely two years ago, it encompasses the governments and corporate sectors of seven partner nations, including Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US.
The APP needs more resources and could be enlarged to include other major coal users and exporters like Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. It could draw on the coal expertise of the IEA and other bodies. A key advantage of the APP is that it engages companies as well as officials.
In the West, these coal and engineering firms, rather than governments, own the technology that enables modern coal plants to filter out nitrous oxide, a significant greenhouse gas, and other harmful emissions. These same companies are the leaders in developing the next generation of coal-fired plants that will capture CO2 for burial underground, although this may add substantially to the cost of electricity.
Last month, the Centre for Global Development in Washington, a non-partisan research institute, compiled an online data base listing CO2 emissions from 50,000 power plants around the world, with figures for the years 2000 and 2007, then forecasts for five to 10 years in the future, based on published plans.
The data base shows that the US power sector is currently the top emitter, spewing nearly 2.8 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. China follows close behind at 2.7 billion tons, with Russia at 661 million tons, India at 583 million tons, and Japan at 400 million tons. Germany, Australia, South Africa, Britain and South Korea round out the top 10 carbon polluters.
A significant finding of this study is that senior executives of the 100 largest power companies worldwide are responsible for plants that emit 57 per cent of all CO2 emissions from this sector. Bringing them into coal-related climate change negotiations could help to ensure that the businesses they head move from being an important part of the problem to an important part of the solution.
* The writer, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
