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Coal row Down Under has lessons for Africa

27th January 2017

     

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If Donald Trump scares you, look away now.

The row over fossil fuels and ‘clean coal’ that some say won him the election has surfaced in Australia.

And it resonates in the European Union (EU) and Africa.

Last year, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull went to the polls, defeating the opposition Labor Party by less than 1% of the vote. But he has only 30 out of 76 seats in the all-powerful Senate and rules at the mercy of independents.

Canberra’s upper house was designed to protect the country from a power grab by the federal government; each of the six states – regardless of population – has ten senators, with another six from the remote Northern Territory and other dependencies.

Now, Labor state governments in Queensland and Victoria, along with the opposition, want the country to stop making electricity from fossil fuels. By 2030, they say, 50% should come from renewables like wind and solar. It currently stands at 15%, with Turnbull pledged to nearly a quarter of all power being green by 2020.

And because of this, the Prime Minister may be fighting for his job.

In 2009, with Labor in power, Turnbull was leader of the opposition, and struggling in the polls. His colleague, Tony Abbott, challenged him and won, partly on his opposition to limits on carbon fuel.

Labor lost the 2013 election and Abbott became Prime Minister, only to be thrown out by his party two years later in favour of Turnbull.
Abbott stayed on as an MP.

As Canberra came back from the Christmas break, Abbott wrote an opinion piece in the country’s biggest national daily, in which he said that the opposition plan for 50% renewable energy would cost more than US$36-billion. He further stated that even Turnbull’s modest move from fossil fuel was a “reckless hit” on business and families, who would pay more for electricity. Government, he said, should “be on the side of lower prices and more jobs”, calling for the whole idea of targets to be scrapped.

Among developed countries, Australia has the highest proportion of climate-change sceptics, followed by Norway and the US.

With Turnbull’s popularity at an all-time low, critics accuse Abbott of mounting a coup, a claim he denies.

But he has started a fight that is unlikely to end soon.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, but, in a country the size of continental US, with half the population of Kenya, keeping the lights on is a mission – not just generating power, but running it for thousands of kilometres to states like Queensland, twice the size of Mozambique and home to fewer than four-million people.

Ambitious plans for green energy do not win votes, if it means a rise in cost.

It is a problem for South Africa, where power utility Eskom gets 85% of its output from coal and the National Treasury refuses to take the 14% sales tax off solar products.

Aid groups and nongovernmental organisations have been pushing for a greener future, but, if that is hard in South Africa, it is more difficult elsewhere on the continent, where more than 500-million people are not even on the grid.

After the Abbott attack, Canberra released a report commissioned by Turnbull, showing the country could reach its carbon target by installing new coal-fired technology that cuts emissions by up to 27%.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who led the research, said: “People who oppose the coal industry for ideological reasons are incorrectly claiming its days are numbered.

“High-tech coal-fired stations,” he said, “can be an important tool [in cooling the planet].”

The technology is already being used in China, Japan, India, Korea and the US.

An alternative would be to go the British route and impose a financial penalty on coal, pushing demand for wind, wave and solar.

But electricity prices in the UK are among the highest in the EU, nearly double prices in Poland or Romania, Europe’s second-biggest coal miner after Germany.

Poland generates three-quarters of its power from coal and has already lured companies to shift their manufacturing bases from Britain, including chocolate maker Cadbury and tea maker Twinings.

Just months ago, it looked as if Africa was going against the trend when Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania all suggested they would be using more coal in the future.

In Australia, Abbott has reopened the debate and looks set to continue his attack.

And, if Trump and his team turn back Barrack Obama’s war on climate change and carry out the election promise to save jobs in the coal belt that includes some of the poorest towns in America, the culture may spread.

United Nations agencies – some of which lead the solar push – rely on Washington for funding. And in Europe, parties topping the polls in France and the Netherlands side with Trump.

In such an unstable world, Africa may have no choice but to chart its own course.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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