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enjamin Sporton, president of the World Coal Association, penned an opinion piece that described coal as both a climate change solution and an affordable energy source (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 30). He is wrong on both counts, but, fortunately there are energy alternatives that are indeed both clean and affordable.

In his piece, Sporton asserts that “projections forecast coal to increase its share in power generation [...] to 50 percent in 2040.” Although he doesn’t cite a source for this figure, it appears he is referring to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “Current Policies Scenario” — a scenario that assumes governments don’t act on climate change, which would commit the world to around six degrees Celsius of warming.

According to author Mark Lynas, who wrote an exhaustively-researched book on what six degrees of warming would mean, such climate change is “so extreme it’s almost unimaginable.” He adds that in this scenario, “most of the planetary surface would be functionally uninhabitable.”

When we instead consider the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario — a scenario that would deliver access to energy for all by 2030 while aiming at a 50 percent chance of remaining below 2 degrees Celsius of warming coal’s future in Southeast Asia is starkly different from the picture Sporton would paint.

Under this scenario, coal accounts for just 6 percent of electricity generation in 2040, instead of the 50 percent expected in the climate catastrophe scenario referred to by Sporton (and it is worth noting that even this Sustainable Development Scenario is still not in line with the Paris Agreement’s limit of “well below 2 degrees” temperature rise, and the aspiration of limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees).

Sporton also asserts that coal has lifted 600 million people out of poverty as justification for new coal-fired power plants. Yet the IEA indicates that, to achieve universal electricity access for all by 2030 as enshrined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, more than 78 percent of new connections will come from renewable energy sources.

Even setting aside the pressing issues of climate change and energy access, Sporton’s fundamental assertion that coal will continue to be the most affordable energy option for the ASEAN region is not supported by the evidence. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2020 solar power will be cheaper than coal power worldwide.

Alex Doukas
The Stop Funding Fossils Program Director at Oil Change International
Washington, DC