Scientists Rebut Clean Coal

The International Coal and Climate Summit was controversial for UNFCCC secretary Christiana Figueres’s attendance, and the media seem to have overlooked the abundance of climate deniers in attendance. Leading scientists have released a statement to refute the coal industry’s idea that ‘clean coal’ is the solution to climate change.

During the opening plenary, Figueres told attendees that “by now it should be abundantly clear that further capital expenditures on coal can go ahead only if they are compatible with the two degrees limit.”

You can read the statement in full here. Below are the six key points:

1. Unabated coal is not a ‘low carbon’ technology.

2. Avoiding dangerous climate change requires that the majority of fossil fuel reserves need to stay underground.

3. Current trends in coal use are harbouring catastrophic climate change.

4. To keep global warming to below two degrees above pre-industrial levels, use of unabated coal has to go down in absolute terms, starting now.

5. Alternative are available and affordable.

6. Public financing institutions and regulatory agencies are reigning in unabated coal but more needs to be done.

By Andrew Johnson, photo by Laura Owsianka.