No Ramp-up for Sunderbans power plant!

Published by MAC on 2016-11-07
Source: Statements, Reuters, Mining.com

- demand UNESCO and IUCN

World Heritage Centre and IUCN call for relocation of Rampal power plant, a serious threat to the Sundarbans

UNESCO press statement

18 October 2016

The Sundarbans in Bangladesh is part of the world’s largest mangrove forests, home to the famous Bengal Tiger and a hotspot for dolphins, turtles, and birds. Millions of people depend on this labyrinth of tidal rivers for food, homes, and flood protection.

The Sundarbans were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997, and will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. In March 2016, the World Heritage Centre and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) conducted a reactive monitoring mission to assess the conservation of this iconic area. The mission was requested by the World Heritage Committee during its 2015 session in Bonn.

The mission was tasked with reviewing potential impacts from the construction of the Rampal power plant, assessing risks from climate change, and evaluating the overall management system of the Sundarbans, including provisions around shipping safety. The mission visited the site of the proposed Rampal power plant, as well as the locations of a 2015 cargo vessel accident and 2016 oil spill. It included meetings with key ministries, industry  representatives, port authorities, a small number of researchers and local community members.

This week, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN released a report on the mission. The report concludes that the proposed Rampal power plant, a 1320 megawatt super thermal power plant located just 65 kilometers from the World Heritage property, poses a serious threat to the site. The mission team identified four key concerns related to the plant’s construction: pollution from coal ash by air, pollution from wastewater and waste ash, increased shipping and dredging, and the cumulative impact of industrial and related development infrastructure. The mission recommends that the Rampal power plant project be cancelled and relocated to a more suitable location.

The report also concluded that the freshwater flow into the Sundarbans has been drastically reduced, resulting in substantial increases in siltation and salinity that are threatening the overall balance of the ecosystem. It further found that the site lacks a clear and comprehensive assessment of the combined effects from increasing coastal development. The report recommends immediate action to secure adequate freshwater flow to the site, and calls for a new integrated management plan taking into account the carrying capacity of this fragile ecosystem that can secure a sustainable balance between socio-economic development and conservation.

The State Party of Bangladesh has been requested to provide a progress report to the World Heritage Centre by 1 December 2016, including a 1-page
executive summary on the state of conservation of the property. It will be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its 41st session in 2017, in view of possible inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

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UNESCO recommends cancellation of Rampal coal plant in Bangladesh, increasing reputation risk for Ex-Im Bank of India

BankTrack press release

October 2016

Nijmegen, the Netherlands - A UNESCO monitoring mission report released today, recommending that the proposed Rampal coal plant project in Bangladesh be “cancelled and relocated to a more suitable location where it would not impact negatively on the Sundarbans Reserved Forest”, has been welcomed by BankTrack. [1] The UN agency’s report findings presented to the Bangladeshi government have also increased pressure on the Export-Import Bank of India to reconsider a potential USD 1.6 billion loan for the project or risk taking a major reputational hit.

The report follows a fact-finding mission to Bangladesh in March this year undertaken by the Secretariat of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to assess the risks of proposed coal power projects on the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and a designated UNESCO World Heritage site.

UNESCO's ‘cancel and relocate’ Rampal recommendation to the Bangladeshi government is based on a catalogue of egregious shortcomings and risks which, as the report describes in extensive detail, stem from the Rampal project promoter’s inadequate assessment of the 1320 megawatt coal plant’s environmental impacts on the Sundarbans.

The proposed financing of the estimated USD 2 billion coal plant involves a 30% equity investment from the promoter, the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, a joint venture between India’s National Thermal Power Corporation and the Bangladesh Power Development Board, and 70% debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of India, majority owned by the Indian state. [2]

To date, no other major international bank has been prepared to get involved in debt financing for the Rampal plant. With media reports suggesting that the Export-Import Bank of India has been aiming for financial close on the project by the third quarter of 2016 [3], the bank’s chairman and managing director, Yaduvendra Mathur, acknowledged in June this year that its participation in the project could involve a reputation risk. [4]

Johan Frijns, director of BankTrack, said: “The UNESCO recommendation that the Rampal coal plant should be cancelled is very welcome news for the Sundarbans. Ex-Im India needs to consider the report’s findings seriously and in good faith rather than ignoring them.

“There is a reason why no major international bank has been prepared to go near Rampal. It’s called ‘fatal blow to reputation’ and that blow has now arrived via this damning UNESCO report. The threats posed to the wondrous, unique Sundarbans ecosystem by this coal plant, and the inevitable cumulative air and water pollution it will deliver, have been known for years. Ex-Im India must heed these objective warnings and not finance the project or its reputation will be seriously compromised in the eyes of the international investors on which it relies for funding."

Greig Aitken, BankTrack's coal campaigner, said: “We are also very concerned about the worsening atmosphere of intimidation that is being directed towards opponents of the Rampal project. The Government of Bangladesh has to accept that many people in the country do not want to see the Sundarbans tarnished by this highly questionable investment, and they have a fundamental democratic right to voice their concerns without harassment, fear of reprisals and unfounded allegations which place lives in danger.” [5]

For more information, contact:

Greig Aitken, BankTrack coal campaigner
Tel: +420 607084093; Email: greig[at]banktrack.org

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Notes for editors:

1. See the UNESCO monitoring mission report released today.

2. See page 4 of the June 2016 report ‘Risky and over-subsidised: A financial analysis of the Rampal power plant’ by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

3. See 'The Economic Times', 21 February 2016.

4. See 'Business Standard', 22 June 2016.

5. Last week the eminent Bangladeshi intellectual and economist Professor Anu Muhammad received a death threat connected to his opposition to the Rampal project. On October 9, it was reported that Bangladesh’s Minister of Power alleges that ‘most of the protestors’ against Rampal have links to Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist Bangladeshi Islamist group.

The Rampal coal plant is a BankTrack dodgy deal.

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Renewables beat coal as largest source of power capacity

Though still lag behind coal when it comes to electricity generation

Andrew Topf

http://www.mining.com/renewables-beat-coal-largest-source-power-capacity/

30 October 2016

While coal continues to crank out electricity for millions of people in developing nations, renewable energy is rapidly catching up and last year, overtook coal as the world's largest source of installed power capacity.

About half a million solar panels were installed every day last year and two wind turbines went up ever hour in 2015 – which may be seen as a turning point for renewables, led by solar power and wind. The astonishing figures come via the International Energy Agency (IEA), which in a recent report, raised its renewable growth forecast.

In 2015 over half of new power capacity came from renewable energy – reaching 153 gigawatts, or 15% more than last year. The amount of solar and wind added in 2015 were both record-setting; PV additions reached 49 GW and wind achieved 66 GW.
"About half a million solar panels were installed every day last year and two wind turbines went up ever hour in 2015"

"‌There are many factors behind this remarkable achievement: more competition, enhanced policy support in key markets, and technology improvements. While climate change mitigation is a powerful driver for renewables, it is not the only one. In many countries, cutting deadly air pollution and diversifying energy supplies to improve energy security play an equally strong role in growing low-carbon energy sources, especially in emerging Asia," states the latest edition of the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report.

The 153 GW of installed green energy was more than the total power capacity of Canada and greater than the amount of conventional fossil fuel or nuclear power added in 2015. While renewables surpassed coal in their cumulative share of power capacity, they have not yet knocked fossil fuels from the top of the heap when it comes to electricity generation. That's because renewables, due to their intermittency, cannot produce power at the same constant level as coal or nuclear.

According to the IEA in 2015 coal power plants produced close to 39% of the world's power while renewables, including hydroelectric dams, accounted for 23%. However the IEA expects that number to climb to 28% by 2021, when renewables will supply the equivalent of all the power produced currently in the US and the EU combined.

The IEA now sees renewables growing 13% more between 2015 and 2021 than it did in last year’s forecast, due mostly to "stronger policy backing in the United States, China, India and Mexico." The costs of installing solar and wind have dropped, and expected to drop considerably – 25% less for PV solar and a decrease of 15% for onshore wind, for the forecasted period, according to the agency.

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More coal plants will deepen - not cut - poverty, researchers warn

By Laurie Goering

Thomson Reuters Foundation - http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1CU4FT?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

24 October 2016

LONDON - Building just a third of planned new coal-fired power plants around the world would push hundreds of millions of people into poverty as it accelerates climate change past an agreed limit of 2 degrees Celsius of warming, development experts warn.

As pressure builds to phase out coal as a power source in favour of cleaner renewable energy, the coal industry has fought back, arguing that coal is the cheapest and most reliable way to bring power to millions without it.

In particular, "clean coal" technology offers emissions 25 to 40 percent lower than traditional coal plants, industry officials say.

But a report by a dozen poverty and development organisations - including the UK-based Overseas Development Institute and the Vasudha Foundation in New Delhi - suggests that falling prices for solar and wind power mean renewable energy is now the fastest and least expensive way to bring electricity to the world's poor.

In particular, off-grid and "distributed" renewable power - in which smaller-scale clean power systems are built close to areas of demand, avoiding the high cost of expanding national power grids - is "the cheapest and quickest way of reaching over two-thirds of those without electricity", the report said.

"There are myths that we're trying to pull up the ladder and deny developing countries the chance to develop the way we did," said Sarah Wykes, the lead analyst on climate change and energy issues for CAFOD, a Catholic international development charity.

"But you don't need these kinds of dirty fuels anymore for economic development. There are much better clean alternatives," said Wykes, one of the authors of the report, in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Around the world, more than 2,400 coal power plants are now under construction or being planned, experts say. Two-thirds of those are in China and India - both countries already struggling with growing deaths from air pollution, the report noted.

Building even a third of those plants would push the world past the international goal agreed in Paris last December to hold world temperature increase to "well under" 2 degrees Celsius, the report said, worsening climate impacts from longer droughts and more severe storms to rising sea levels.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has warned if Asia goes ahead its planned coal plants, "I think we are finished. ... That would spell disaster for our planet."

One reason developing countries - and those who fund projects there - continue to look to coal to meet growing energy needs is that it's what they already know, Wykes said.

"Development finance staff have expertise in fossil fuels and lack skills in renewable," she said. "There's a lack of internal incentives, human capacity and the right policy frameworks."

The coal industry also is a powerful and established lobbying group, she said, with workers who are fighting for their jobs and who would need retraining to take jobs in the emerging renewable energy industry, she said.

But a number of developing countries - including Rwanda and Ethiopia in Africa - have already chosen to invest heavily in renewable energy as their path to development, she said. Nicaragua, in central America, aims to get 95 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2017, she said.

Renewable energy systems also provide more, healthier and higher quality jobs than coal, Wykes said.

But for more developing countries to chose clean power, richer nations need to provide finance and technology to help them, and big development banks and funds - including the Green Climate Fund - need to commit to not financing coal projects, the report said.

Rich countries also need to lead the way by rapidly reducing their own use of coal power and scaling up renewable energy, the authors said.

"Coal undermines both climate and development goals, while clean energy supports them," said Ilmi Granoff, one of the paper's authors and a climate and energy researcher at the Overseas Development Institute. (Reporting by Laurie Goering; editing by Ros Russell:; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit news.trust.org/climate)

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Beyond coal: scaling up clean energy to fight global poverty

Working and discussion papers

October 2016

Ilmi Granoff, James Ryan Hogarth, Sarah Wykes and Alison Doig

https://www.odi.org/publications/10589-beyond-coal-scaling-clean-energy-fight-global-poverty

Eradicating global poverty is within reach, but under threat from a changing climate. Left unchecked, climate change will put at risk our ability to lift people out of extreme poverty permanently by 2030, the first target of the Sustainable Development Goals. Coal is the world’s number one source of CO2 emissions. Most historic emissions came from the coal industry in the developed world in the last century, with China joining the biggest emitters at the beginning of this one. It is widely accepted that a rapid and just response to climate change will require the urgent replacement of coal with low-carbon energy sources in rich economies.

Now the coal industry claims that expanding coal use is critical to fighting extreme poverty and improving energy access for billions of people in developing countries. In fact, the opposite is true. The global commitment to eradicate extreme poverty and energy poverty by 2030 does not require such an expansion and it is incompatible with stabilising the earth’s climate. The evidence is clear: a lasting solution to poverty requires the world’s wealthiest economies to renounce coal, and we can and must end extreme poverty without the precipitous expansion of new coal power in developing ones.

This paper explores the role of energy in fighting poverty, arguing that:

More coal will not end energy poverty
Coal is given too much credit for the reduction of extreme poverty
Better energy options exist to lift people out of income poverty
More coal will entrench poverty.

Downloads
Beyond coal - scaling up clean energy to fight global poverty
- https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/10964.pdf