This second installment of the article which appeared in the Sept-Oct issue of World Watch is below. The first installment was published in the September issue of the Highlands Voice. Many thanks to the Worldwatch Institute for permission to use this article, and to Vivian Stockman for first alerting me to it. Editor.

by Seth Dunn

In Part I, Seth Dunn described some of the crises that are occurring in the world because of the long standing use of coal as an energy source, and of the attendant problems associated with the burning of coal – to health and the environment.

The second generation of coal-related pollution laws, motivated by public concern over acid rain, led companies to install another technological quick-fix. This time "clean-coal" technologies were the promised solution, namely flue-gas desulfurization and nitrogen-control equipment. While the equipment lowered emissions of the targeted pollutants, they, like higher smokestacks, had unforeseen side effects. Clean coal creates added water demands, produces large amounts of sludge and other solid wastes, and decreases energy efficiency, thereby increasing emissions of other compounds – including carbon dioxide (CO2),

Ranging from less than 20 to more than 98 percent in carbon content, coal is the most carbon-rich fossil fuel. The industrial era’s heavy combustion of these fuels is short-circuiting the global carbon cycle, building up atmospheric CO2 concentrations to their highest point in 420,000 years. The thickening blanket of these and other greenhouse gases has already trapped enough radiative heat to make the planet’s surface its warmest in 1,200 years.

Many expected climatic dislocations are appearing: sea level rise; accelerating glacier retreat and ice shelf breakup; migrations and declines of forests, coral reefs, and other temperature-sensitive species; changes in the timing and duration of seasons; greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Climate scenarios for the year 2050 from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research show tropical forests turning to desert, adding more carbon to the atmosphere; malaria spreading to currently unaffected populations; an additional 30 million people at risk of hunger; another 66 million in danger of water stress; and 20 million more susceptible to flooding. Heat stress will have increased by 70 to 100 percent by then – adding several thousand deaths each year in large urban areas like New York, New Delhi, and Shanghai, according to Laurence Kalkstein of the University of Delaware.

Carbon emissions are not the only means by which coal changes climate: mining annually releases 25 million tons of methane, equal in warming potential to the United Kingdom’s entire carbon output. But CO2 is the most important contributor to climate change – and coal releases 29 percent more carbon per unit of energy than oil, and 80 percent more than natural gas. The climatic impact of coal burning is disproportionate to its importance as an energy source: with a 26 percent share of world energy, it accounts for 43 percent of annual global carbon emissions – approx- imately 2.7 billion tons. Climate instability also compounds other coal-related problems: heat stress exacerbates urban air pollution, and higher temperatures make natural systems more vul- nerable to acid rain impacts.

Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 levels at 450 parts per million during the next century, which some scientists believe necessary to avoid far more dangerous disruptions of climate, would constrain coal use to somewhere between 200 and 300 billion tons – less than 7 percent of the total resource base. Burning the entire coal resource, on the other hand, would release 3 trillion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, five times the safe limit. Thus, while energy analysts point to the apparent size of the fuel’s reserves, the amount that could be safely used is far smaller. From the perspective of balancing the carbon budget, coal is a highly limited energy source.

Despite studies showing the economic feasibility of switching from coal, several governments and industries are pursuing another end-of-pipe solution: carbon sequesstration. Firms and agencies in the United States, Norway, and elsewhere are devoting millions of dollars to test technologies for separating and capturing CO2 from fossil fuels. The CO2 would then be locked up by injecting it into oceans, terrestrial eco- systems, and geological formations. But the potential impacts on ocean chemistry and deep-sea ecosystems have not been explored, and injected emissions could be re-released due to geological activity. And if sites subject to slow release are used, carbon management could reduce atmo- spheric CO2 concentrations in the near term but increase them in the long term – adding to the climate problem.

Meanwhile, some industrial nations seeking developing-country action on climate change are, contradictorily, redirecting clean coal programs over-seas. In a novel form of trade "dumping," clean-coal equipment features prominently in bilateral energy missions, with firms and officials from the United States, Japan, and Australia proselytizing to poor nations that they "need clean-coal technologies." The World Bank and European Commission have aimed clean-coal technology initiatives at developing and former Eastern bloc nations, where the techno- logies remain unproven. Indeed, clean-coal equipment has failed to demonstrate financial viability in the West (its high capital investment costs make it less attractive than natural-gas-fired combined-cycle turbines), linking its peddling less to economics than to the political clout of the industry.

Exhibit D: Losing Labor

"The story of coal in America," writes Duane Lockard in Coal: A Memoir and Critique, "is the story of corporate successes and excesses generally." The same can now be said for the coal industry worldwide. Shrinking profits and growing deficits are leading to drastic cost-cutting practices that translate into lower prices but also major job losses, creating an employment crisis among coal miners around the globe. It is, however, both necessary and possible to reduce reliance on coal while minimizing the displacement of workers that inevitably accompanies the decline of an industry.

Worldwide, only about 10 million coal mining jobs remain, making up one-third of all mining jobs and accounting for one-third of 1 percent of the global workforce. In industrial nations, the coal-mining industry is no longer a major employer, and employment is falling even where production or exports are rising. In deve- loping countries and transitional economies, where employment is still relatively high, pressures to reform the industry and cut costs are causing major job dislocations.

Like other sunset industries, the coal sector is increasingly characterized by bigger and fewer companies, more and larger equipment, and less labor-intensive operations. In the United States, the 10 largest firms account for 60 percent of output, up from 35 percent a decade ago. During coal’s peak, in 1924, 705,000 miners toiled in U.S. mines; today there are fewer than 82,000. Thanks mostly to surface mining, employment has declined by two-thirds over the last 20 years and is expected to continue to fall; coal miners now count for less than 0.1 percent of the nation’s workforce. Though domestic consumption continues to crawl upward, exports have dropped 25 percent since 1996, and experts agree that they will never return to pre-1998 levels.

The rate of contraction has as much to do with politics as with economic and environmental factors. Coal industries in both the United Kingdom and Germany have been weakened since the 1960s by environmental regulations and the switch to cleaner natural gas, now the fuel of choice for power generation in industrial nations. But while contraction in the United Kingdom has been rapid – only 13,000 union coal miners remain, out of 1.2 million in 1978 – the decline in Germany has been more gradual, from 190,000 in 1982 to less than 90,000 today.

Similar struggles lie ahead for other coal-dependent nations. In Australia, 9,000 of the nation’s 22,000 coal miners went on strike in 1997 when impending job cuts led Rio Tinto, the world’s largest mining company, to try to deunionize the industry. In South Africa, coal production has risen 65 percent, but employment has fallen over 20 percent, since 1980. In India, where production has doubled since 1980, employment is still declining as a proportion of population. Poland’s mines lose nearly $700 million each year. Russia has halted production in 90 mines and intends to have shut 130 of its 200 mines by 2000. Major future losses are expected in these countries as improved productivity and the shift to less energy- intensive service industries make more jobs redundant.

Cost cutting, mine closings, and job losses are greatest in China, where Li Yi, director of the Xishan coal mining bureau, summed up the industry’s prevailing philosophy in a 1998 interview: "Our motto is: Cut people, improve efficiency." The world’s leading coal producer and consumer, China has lost 870,000 workers over the last five years, and slashed production by 250 million tons in 1998 due to excess capacity and rail transport bottlenecks. (Like India, Australia, and South Africa, China faces a geographic mismatch between coal reserves and energy needs.) The government plans to close down 25,800 coal mines this year – most among the 75,000 mines in township and village areas – and shut off all small, unauthorized mines. In May 1999, the government halted the issuance of permits for new coal mining projects.

The United Kingdom and China highlight both the challenges of and chances for helping workers in the transition to the post-coal era. In both, thousands of laid-off workers have blocked traffic, stopped trains, and stormed official offices. But both governments recognize that coal’s heyday is over: they are shifting from coal-reliant industries like steel works to more modern sectors – such as the high-tech and tourism industries – and both are planning solar-cell manufacturing sites in mining areas, to ease the transition for workers.

The current, emergency-room approach to coping with coal has proved so expensive, yielded such limited results, and contributed to so many environmental and health problems, that shifting to cleaner alternatives will help solve these problems at a much lower cost. Treating coal’s symptoms in isolation has proved insufficient for improving human and planetary health. Fortunately, remedies are available that will allow the world to rapidly reduce the use of coal and accelerate the transition to cleaner energy sources. Among the keys to cutting coal reliance are blocking mining and power projects through community activism, closing legislative loopholes, and reorienting coal-centric bilateral, multilateral, and multinational investment flows. But two policies are central to the "decoalonization" process: subsidy removal and energy taxation. Without them, the market will continue to deceive us into thinking coal is cheap, abundant, and irreplaceable, just when countries like China are beginning to realize how costly, limited, and unnecessary dependence on this fuel is.

Simply put, removing subsidies cuts coal consumption. Belgium, France, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom have collectively halved coal use since slashing or ending supports over the last fifteen years. Russia, India, and China have also made progress: China’s coal subsidy rates have been more than halved since 1984, contributing to a slowing – and 5.2 percent drop in 1998 – in consumption. Opportunities exist for further reductions. Total world coal subsidies are estimated to be $63 billion, including $30 billion in industrial nations, $27 billion in the former Eastern bloc, and $6 billion in China and India. In Germany, the total is $21 billion – including direct production supports of more than $70,000 per miner.

The experience of Germany highlights the opportunities for – and obstacles to – taxing coal. A European Commission study shows that inter- nalizing the external costs of coal from a German power plant would raise the price of power by 50 percent. Yet the government’s 1998 ecological tax reform excluded coal due to industry opposition. As Ed Cohen-Rosenthal of Cornell University writes, "The question for coal miners is whether to dig in and fight or use the concern about global warming to negotiate the best deal for current members and retirees as one means of paving the way to a cleaner environment. This is a decision that only they can make and outsiders should respect their feelings. But their leverage for a negotiated outcome will never be higher than it is right now."

Digging in has predominated to date – coal labor groups underwrite skeptical "scientists" and oppose the Kyoto Protocol – though signs of reconciliation exist. In Australia, an Earthworker caucus of trade union and environmental groups is developing a plan for building solar and wind power industries. The AFL-CIO and U.S. environmental groups are crafting "worker-friendly" climate policies, like employing former miners in remediating abandoned mines. But while labor groups stress the need for "just transitions" to aid adversely affected workers, those representing coal miners appear less likely to become advocates of coal subsidy and tax reform, which could help fund such a transition, than to defend these endangered jobs to the bitter end – and at the expense of society at large.

Bold initiatives in coal taxation, mean- while, can be found in China. The government has introduced a tax on high-sulfur coal to encourage a switch to plentiful natural gas and renewable-energy resources. Like cigarette taxes in the West, the coal levy may spread in the East; as with smoking in public places, coal use might also be banned outright where it is deemed too great a public burden to bear.

Back in Beijing, high-sulfur coal has been banned, 40 "coal-free zones" are planned, and natural gas pipelines are under discussion. Hundreds of residents in Beijing are mobilizing through citizens’ groups, such as the Global Village, to supervise implementation of the policies and raise public consciousness of the problem. The idea is catching on: four more Chinese cities – Shanghai, Lanzhou, Xian, and Shenyang – have followed suit with plans to phase out coal.

The challenge is to turn these local gains into a worldwide movement over the coming century, just as coal’s negative consequences have risen from local to global during this one. A global coal phaseout has become as environmentally necessary and economically feasible as it might seem politically radical. Thirty years ago, few could have predicted the nascent anti-smoking effort would ever "go global," but it has. Coal now poses as serious a risk to our collective well-being, if not greater. If China’s smoky cities can mobilize to begin eradicating the tobacco of our energy system, it is conceivable that the rest of the world’s governments can as well.

Like sustainable development more broadly, achieving independence from King Coal will be no overnight coup, but a lengthy revo- lution. Yet the social, economic, and environ- mental rewards of a coal phaseout promise to be enormous. In the third millennium, societies will find themselves – to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau – rich in proportion to the coal they can afford to leave in the ground.