Greenpeace report reveals global coal costs of €360 billion in 2007 – minimum
Warsaw, Poland – 27 November 2008 - Greenpeace today released an analysis showing that the global cost of coal was at
least €360 billion last year alone. The report, “The True Cost of Coal” (1), released with the independent Dutch
Institute CE Delft, arrived at this figure by looking at very modest CO2 damage costs, health costs and mining
accidῥnts.
The report was released as Industry Ministers from at least 20 big emitting countries met in Warsaw with the world’s
climate-polluting industries (2).
“The relentless expansion of the coal industry is the single greatest threat to averting dangerous climate change. Coal
is the most climate-polluting fossil fuel, responsible for one third of all CO2 emissions, and is projected to increase
to 60% of emissions by 2030,” Joris Thijssen, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Έnternational, told a press
conference. œClearly, quitting coal will benefit not only the climate, but also reduce the other impacts which everybody
else has to pay for.
Earlier in the day Greenpeace activists dumped lignite, dirty brown coal that makes up a large portion of Poland’s
mining output, outside of the Warsaw Sheraton, sending a message to the meeting and demanding that it fully support deep
cuts in emissions, not seek to protect the coal industry
In calculating the figure, CE Delft focused on the external costs of coal in 2007 for damages attributable to climate
change, human health impacts from air pollution and fatalities due to major mining accidents - factors for which
reasonably reliable global data is currently available.
“When taking into account about 90% of the global emissions and looking at these damages, we get a conservative but
robust cost figure of €360 billion annually,” said Agnieszka Markowska, damages expert from CE Delft. ”With the
projected rising damages due to the impacts of climate change, this total number is likely to increase sῨarply if
climate change is not stopped.
Examples of the projected impacts of climate change include the billions of people who will face water shortage and the
hundreds of millions who will be threatened by food insecurity and more extreme weather events.
The impacts of coal are not only related to climate change. Coal also pollutes water resources, dirties the air and
causes black lung disease. The report contains ‘on the ground’ stories from 12 countries that describe, for example, how
human rights are violated in Colombia while mining coal, how mountain tops are blown apart in the United States and how
coal use adds dramatically to air pollution in China.
Greenpeace Poland campaign director Maciej Muskat said that Greenpeace strongly suspected the Polish Government had
organised the meeting for the wrong reasons.
“The Polish people are already paying a high price for the cost of coal, through health impacts and the loss of lakes
and ecosystems. Instead of concentrating on trying to shore up opposition against action on climate at both the Poznan
meeting and the EU climate-energy package (3), the Polish government should implement its own ῲenewable energy target
and tap into the enormous potential of energy efficiency (4), he said.
The Warsaw meeting will probably talk about ‘clean coal’ technology that has the potential to sharply reduce CO2
emissions from coal-fired power plants. However, the Greenpeace report ‘False Hope ’ shows that so-called Carbon Capture
and Storage (CCS) is a dangerous distraction. The technology is unproven, contains inherent risks and comes with an
enormous price tag. Globalᾠgreenhouseᾠgas emissions need to start declining in the next seven years and CCS is in no
position to play a role in making this happen.
In Poznan, Greenpeace wants to see governments agree a “climate vision” that will address what the science requires:
global emissions peaking by 2015. Developed countries must agree targets at the upper end of 25-40%, as identified by
the IPCC, along with a draft negotiating text on the table and a detailed workplan to get this completed by Copenhagen
in December 2009.
ends