Fakoyejo OlalekanThe decision of the United Kingdom to approve a coal mine operation in Cumbria, in December, has given credence to the labelling of western countries as ‘hypocritical’ among developing nations.
Developed countries have been mounting pressure on Nigeria and other African countries to transition from coal, oil and gas to renewable energy in to reduce the impact of fossil fuels on climate change.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThis is despite African countries’ accounting for less than one per cent of cumulative global carbon emissions and wealthier nations being behind the larger damage fossil fuel has caused globally.
However, despite assuring world leaders and climate change activists of UK’s commitment to reducing its contribution to fossil fuel at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference also known as the Conference of Parties (COP 27), UK has now gone ahead to approve the first coal mine in 30 years.
Russia pushing UK, others back to coal, fossil fuels
The UK joined a growing list of western countries backtracking to the use of coal, with Austria, Germany, France, Finland, and Netherlands.
Their return to the use of coal comes amid faceoff with Russia due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The faceoff has led to reduction of oil and gas from Moscow, which accounts for 45 per cent of Europe’s natural gas.
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, had stated in June, “We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas.”
With Russian war against Ukraine not ending soon, the UK and other developed countries are now returning to the fossil fuel they had been asking Nigerians and other developing nations to abandon.
According to shipbroker Banchero Costa, in the first nine months of 2022, the total global seaborne coal loadings increased by 3.0 per cent year-on-year from 864.5 million in 2021 to 890.2 million this year.
Taking a look at the total global coal loading trade, the volume fell by -5.0 per cent year-on-year to 258.6 million tonnes in first quarter of 2022, when the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out and the COVID-19 effect phasing out.
However, it rose by 7.7 per cent y-o-y in Q2 to 313.9 million tonnes, and 5.7 per cent increment in Q3 this year to 317.7 million tonnes. During that period, Business Research Company reported in its Coal Global Market Report that the market grew from $595.59 billion in 2021 to $618.67 billion in 2022.
For example, South Africa, which is the world’s fifth and Africa’s highest coal exporter, saw its export to the EU go up 582.7 per cent.
Cost of transition for Nigeria, Tinubu, Osinbajo make case
The return of western countries to coal has proved that African countries need to chart their course in the coal industry in order not to shoot themselves in the foot.
While the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, had stated that Africa was not to be blamed for the climate change issue, but suffering the worst from it, talking about the double standards of wealthier countries towards the discontinuation of coal usage, Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, stated, “Today in the wake of the energy crisis, many European nations have made recent announcements to increase or extend their use of coal fired power generation through 2023, and potentially beyond.
“This is in violation of their climate commitments, and analysis suggests that this will raise power sector emissions of the EU by 4 per cent — a significant amount given the high base denominator of EU emissions.”
For a country like Nigeria that had coal as one of its major revenue sources between 1916 and 1970 after discovering the resource in 1909 in Enugu State, the nation plans to reduce global emissions to zero by 2060, and one of the ways to achieve it is to close the four existing coal mines.
This means Nigeria will not only be blocking itself from tapping into the $618.67 billion global coal market, it will also prevent the country from improving its electricity problem and raise the cost of power beyond the ability of low-income houses if it turns to green energy.
For Nigeria, coal could generate 53,900 megawatts of electricity by 2030 and keep many in jobs. But if the country is to switch or join the transition from coal to clean energy, it will need invest up to $425 billion in mixed energy sources to achieve the 2060 timeframe, according to global technology group, Wartsila.
The more investment, the more affordable clean energy becomes for citizens in developing nations like Nigeria, and Bola Tinubu, a Presidential candidate for the 2023 election in Nigeria had emphasised on the need of financing to assist developing nations.
“We are a poor nation. They banned coal. They say firewood is not to be fetched. They say we need to plant trees and they are not giving us money,” He said, adding that, “We need to open our eyes. We need to tell the West, if they don’t guarantee our finances and work with us to stop this, we are not going to comply with their climate change.”
Osinbajo had also made similar assertion, stating that de-funding gas projects to curb fossil fuel will have a negative impact, “stopping the use of gas means that we cannot use Liquefied Petroleum Gas(LPG) for clean cooking stoves to replace the use of kerosene, firewood and charcoal which are dirtier fuels that are widely used for cooking and other domestic purposes, particularly in the rural areas.”
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