Coals Are Reduced but Not Terminated

The annual meeting of United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (COP28) was opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with attendance of the leaders of major developed and developing countries, except United States and China which occupy the first and second spots of the largest emitters of the greenhouse gasses. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave a speech in which he appealed Japan’s efforts for reducing emission. That included finishing new building of coal-powered thermal generation. Considering international consensus on unavailability of coal, Kishida should have at least indicated when Japan would end the use of that obsolete power resource, but he could not.

In the opening speech, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned that humanity’s fate was hanging in the balance. “This is a sickness only you, global leaders, can cure,” said Guterres, urging the leaders to end the dependence on fossil fuels and fulfill the long overdue promise for climate justice. He demanded the parties to raise the target for reducing greenhouse gasses.

 

Article 2 of Paris Agreement 2015 determines that it aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pushing efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” While it has been said that the parties have to decrease 43% of their emission of greenhouse gasses by 2030 relative to the 2019 levels. It is predicted that global temperature will rise by 3°C at the end of this century, even if the human beings is successful in achieving current emission goals, which may contribute to the reduction of GHGs only by 2%.

 

In the meeting in Dubai, the leaders competitively pledged their financial contribution to the Loss and Damage Fund, which the parties agreed on the framework in the meeting the day before opening of COP28. The chair country U.A.E. pledged $100 million for the fund, as well as $100 million from Germany, £40 million from United Kingdom and $17.5 million from U.S. Japan joined them with $10 million as operational cost for establishing the fund.

 

When Kishida touched on the fossil fuel power generation in his speech in COP28, he used a narrow definition of coal-powered plant. “On ‘unabated’ coal power plants, they should be addressed by each country on the course of the respective pathways to net-zero, reflecting national conditions,” said Kishida. It meant that Japan would allow “abated” coal-power plants. Mainichi Shimbun indicated that Japan would be going to save coal-power plants as long as possible by promoting combustion of coals mixed with ammonia or hydrogen, a developing technology which would reduce emission of CO₂.

 

Japan has a target of 46% cut of GHGs emission by FY2030, and Kishida stresses that Japan has already cut 20%. However, it is likely that Japan will receive infamous “fossil fuel awards” from non-governmental organizations, which became a routine in the COPs these years, if it keeps on failing in determining when it finishes taking advantage of coal-powered generation.