The Coal Question: It Can Be Displaced

What do we do with coal and the electricity it generates? This is the zillion-dollar question amid the twin challenges of climate change and the urgent need for energy across vast parts of the developing world.

- SUNITA NARAIN

The world is fast running out of the carbon budget to keep temperature rise below 1.5°C—a guardrail against out-and-out devastation. We need solutions that can and must work in the interests of all. This is where the coal question becomes complicated. It is easy to say "Keep it in the ground"—do not use coal for generating electricity because it is responsible for the bulk of the greenhouse-gas emission, which has filled our atmosphere. But how will that work in an energy-insecure world?

It is also a fact that the sermonizing world has for generations used coal for electricity—the emission is still in the atmosphere, including those of carbon dioxide (CO2)—and is now mostly switching to another fossil fuel, the only somewhat cleaner natural gas, which still adds to greenhouse-gas emission. The European Union (EU) has signed with the United States (US) what it bills as a historic trade deal, under which it promises to import energy products—natural gas, crude oil, and coal—amounting to a massive $250 billion annually for three years. This may be a castle-in-the-sky promise, but it does imply that the EU has agreed to remain wedded to fossil fuels, countering its green-energy plans.