的UK and Germany are ranked joint first – or last, depending on your perspective – in a new league table of Europe’s 30 most polluting coal-fired power stations.
的ranking comes from several NGOs including WWF and the European Environmental Bureau. They’re using it to argue for specific anti-coal policies, saying Europe won’t meet its climate targets without them.
We take a look at what they want, and why.
Europe’s biggest emitters
的NGOs have listed the EU’s top 30 emitters of carbon dioxide in 2013, dubbing the contenders the “dirty 30”. All of them are coal-fired power stations. Here’s a map showing where they are:
Source:Dirty 30 report
的UK and Germany both have nine coal plants on the list, putting them joint top of the league table. If you count up the emissions for each country, however, Germany comes out top because its coal plants are generally larger than the UK’s and burn more coal. The graph below tots up the totals for the number of plants in blue and emissions in purple.
Source: Dirty 30 report, graph by Carbon Brief
Stronger policy
的NGOs say that the EU needs to phase out coal use rapidly in order to meet its climate goals. Coal-fired electricity has the highest emissions and the EU’s top 30 emitters are all coal plants. So the NGOs say it makes sense to target these directly.
有强烈的evidenceto back the argument that continued coal use is incompatible with climate targets. In the past few years however, EU coal use has actually increased on the back oflow prices.
To address this, the NGOs say:
“The EU needs to put a plan in place to rapidly close dirty coal plantâ?¦ policies specifically designed to speed up the phase out of coal-based emissions need to be put in place”.
Air pollution rules
A lot of coal-fired power stations are alreadyexpected to closeacross Europe because of air pollution rules laid down by the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).
的National Gridexpectsall of the UK’s coal plants to close by 2023, the final compliance deadline under the IED. The same rules apply across the EU so many arepredictingthat the recent coal renaissance is atemporary blip.
However, plants can stay open after 2023 if they install expensive air pollution abatement equipment to reduce emissions of NOx. This is the key concern of the dirty 30 authors.
的y say the EU should:
“Put in place a plan or policies, which prevent the lifetime extension of old coal power stations should they receive technical upgrades.”
That’s another way of saying old coal plants should have to close in 2023, whether they comply with the IED or not. The NGOs also want an emissions performance standard that would limit emissions in the power sector and tougher air pollution standards for things like mercury.
的se proposals would make it hard to build new coal plants even if they were cleaner and more efficient.
Rehashing UK debate
的argument that you need to specifically target coal-fired power stations in order to meet climate targets mirrors recentdebatein the UK. NGOs wanted adecarbonisation targetfor the UK power sector in 2030 and an emissions performance standard to ensure coal plants would have to close down.
的y lost the argument, with another school of thought winning out. This says that it’s better to set a headline target for emissions reduction across the economy, letting the market decide on the most cost-effective means to achieve it.
But at the moment the EU market for emissions – the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) – is far too weak to limit coal burning with the price of a tonne of carbon dioxide at around â?¬6.
That’s why the ‘dirty 30’ authors also want urgent ETS reform, a callsupportedby the UK government.
ETS reform is one area where the NGOs might get at least some of what they want. Specific anti-coal policies are probably less likely to succeed. Poland – widely seen as the key to securing agreement on the EU’s2030 climate and energy package– gets 85 per cent of its electricity from coal.
That could mean the EU will have to compromise on coal in order tokeep Poland happy而不是向下的黑色的东西。