India has attacked western restrictions on investing in foreign coal projects, claiming that they will hinder efforts to tackle climate change.
Piyush Goyal, India’s energy minister, said that tighter rules imposed on spending in coal-fired power stations by lenders in the United States and Europe were undermining efforts to install cleaner and more efficient equipment that produces fewer emissions.
He claimed that western efforts to shut off foreign cash from India’s coal industry were “counter-productive” because they were forcing generators to keep ageing plants in service.
“If I don’t get enough capital, I won’t be able to replace [them] with energy-efficient plants or less-polluting plants,” Mr Goyal said. “I will continue to spew more carbon into the atmosphere because of this ill-conceived embargo.
“I think it’s so counter-productive because I want to replace all my old plants, which are 30, 40 years old, with new super-efficient plants.”
Advertisement
Mr Goyal used the word “embargo”. Though no embargo exists technically, several state-backed and private lenders in the west have imposed tough informal rules against investment in coal and other high-carbon fuels. In 2013, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and some European investment banks tightened investment in overseas coal projects unless they included carbon capture and storage equipment. Deutsche Bank, Commonwealth Bank and Standard Chartered Bank have all withdrawn from coal projects.
Mr Goyal said that India was aiming to increase its coal production to 1.5 billion tonnes per year by 2020 and rejected accusations that this demonstrated India’s lack of seriousness in the fight against climate change.
About 67 per cent of India’s electricity is generated from thermal coal plants. About 300 million Indians out of 1.3 billion have no access to electricity. Many use dried cow dung and wood as their main fuels for cooking and heat.
“The USA was consuming as much coal per capita 150 years ago as India is consuming today,” the minister said. “Europe and America together support only 12 per cent of the world’s population but have caused more than 50 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse gases.”
He said that India also had ambitious renewable energy targets, with “40 per cent of installed capacity renewable by 2030, and that India’s solar energy programme would generate a million jobs. India is expected to install about ten gigawatts of solar power capacity this year alone, equivalent to all the installed solar capacity in the UK.