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India is the world's third-largest coal producer, but also the second-largest importer Coal image from www.shutterstock.com

As the world moves to combat climate change, it’s increasingly doubtful that coal will continue to be a viable energy source, because of its high greenhouse gas emissions. But coal played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution and continues to fuel some of the world’s largest economies. This series looks at coal’s past, present and uncertain future.

More than a fifth of India’s population lacks access to electricity, posing a major development challenge. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to bring affordable access to electricity to all of these people by 2019.

While Modi has committed to increasing renewable generation, India is also increasing coal production. India is the world’s third-largest coal producer and its second-largest coal importer.

This is creating a growing tension between development and India’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.

Transforming economies

The world economy is changing faster than ever and Asia is at the forefront of its transformation. The growth, led by China over the past decade and more recently by India, shows that Asia has significant progress to make. But there are enormous challenges in realising the dream of the Asian Century.

For instance, in India, 22% of the population is living below the national poverty level. Only 47% of the households have access to a toilet, while 105 million people lack access to clean drinking water and 240 million people don’t have access to electricity.

But there is also bright news for India. The country’s economy is growing quickly and will soon surpass China’s. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its recent interim economic outlook, has predicted that India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow by 7.4% in 2016 and 7.3% in 2017.

In his electoral victory speech, Modi promised a “shining India” of new hopes and aspirations. The reality, however, is far more complex.

Resources are the focal point of this tension, particularly the increasing demand for energy. India’s energy demands will increase significantly, driven by rapid urbanisation, improved electricity access and an expanding manufacturing base.

Energy security is closely linked with food and water security, which are the backbones of the nation and a growing challenge in the face of climate change.

Indian government and businesses are addressing these issues by managing supply, increasing production of coal-based thermal plants and growing renewable energy sources. Coal supplies around half of India’s total energy supply.

Will constraints on resources, particularly access to affordable coal, disrupt India’s economic growth?

What role for coal?

India is the world’s third-largest producer of coal for electricity. While production has increased over the past few decades, the pace of growth has been insufficient to meet demand. Consequently, India has become more reliant on imported coal.

India’s thermal coal imports have increased from almost zero in the 1990s to having it overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest importer in 2013. The Indian government seems to promise adequate supply to its coal-fired electricity generation capacity by expanding its coal production as well as encouraging imports.

For example, the power and coal minister, Piyush Goyal, stated last year that the nation would step up domestic production and stop imports of coal for electricity (not coal for manufacturing) by 2017. However, growing economic growth and population may not allow this.

The Modi government’s plans to give access to affordable electricity to all Indians within the next five years cannot be achieved without importing coal. During the recent visit of India’s energy minister to Australia, the minister admitted that the country will need more coal imports, possibly including from Australia.

Although in the short term the case for Australian coal in India may be weakening due to the current global economic slowdown, India will have to rely on imported coal at least in the immediate future to increase its economic growth. This is reflected by the case of Adani, which is trying to develop a huge Carmichael coal mine in Queensland to supply India with thermal coal.

India’s domestic production of coal is constrained for a variety of reasons. India’s coal reserves are not only insufficient but also unevenly distributed among regions.

A further challenge related to the energy sector is a lack of private participation. Until 2014 coal mining was allowed only for government and private companies directly using coal for electricity and manufacturing.

The Modi government amended this rule to enable private companies to mine coal for sale in the open market. This may help create a more favourable coal market for both foreign and domestic investors and increase domestic production.

Although the Modi government is keen to increase production of domestic coal mines through privatisation, challenges still remain, such as pollution. The costs associated with pollution from coal-fired power stations are very large, as we can see from China.

China’s health minister from 2007-13, Chen Zhu, stated that lung cancer is now the leading cause of death in China as a result of pollution. This required China to spend an extra US$278 billion over five years to control pollution, mainly caused by coal-fired power plants.

India will have to tackle a very similar situation in the future. Hence, coal energy consumption is likely to be one of the defining issues of India’s economy in the 21st century, particularly the way in which the nation simultaneously addresses climate change and access to energy.

This is the fifth article in our series on the past, present and future of coal. Look out for others in the coming days.

Tapan Sarker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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In what has been shaping up as the election that forgot climate change, there are signs emerging in the Coalition’s election campaign that it is starting to listen to polls, its own focus groups and social media chat on climate.

So far it is the Great Barrier Reef that has drawn out the biggest campaign fight on climate.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that A$1 billion of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) fund would be directed towards a Reef Fund. 10% of the money from the CEFC will be quarantined to make loans available to farmers in North Queensland.

While Turnbull declared the greatest threat to the reef was global warming, he nevertheless specified that the run-off from farming into the reef was what would be tackled. This is seen to be a measure that could prolong the reef in a region where the Coalition is at risk of losing some marginal seats.

So, one pitch is that saving the reef is about retaining 70,000 jobs that it sustains. But a less believable pitch is that the fund will battle climate change, with Turnbull saying that solar panels for farms in the region will reduce reliance on diesel, and that farmers would have loans for more energy-efficient farm equipment.

Labor’s shadow environment minister, Mark Butler, derided the Reef Fund as a “shameless exercise in spin” insofar as such loans have already been available to farmers for years.

Not far from the reef, in the Galilee Basin, is one of the largest coal deposits in the world, which both Labor and the Coalition have approved mining leases for, but which the Greens’ Larissa Waters insisted must be stopped if we are not going to:

… further cook the reef.

But on Monday night on the ABC’s Q&A, Bill Shorten reaffirmed Labor’s commitment to coal. He said:

A Labor government isn’t going to ban coal mining in this country … Coal is going to be part of our energy mix for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, he acknowledged:

… when we talk about the reef and when we talk about climate change, they are inextricably linked.

But Shorten’s message was identical to Turnbull’s in referring to jobs, saying that:

… good environments generate good jobs. 70,000 people make a living from the reef. It generates $6 billion in turnover for the Australian economy.

Weather and climate

In another climate change publicity opportunity, in the wash-up of the east coast storm last week, Shorten and Turnbull spent a day surveying the flood damage in Tasmania – but only Turnbull ventured so far as to link the floods to climate change.

While Shorten was happy to link climate change to the reef, he did not want to go near linking climate and weather:

In terms of climate and weather, today for me is not a day where I will join the dots about extreme weather events.

But Turnbull had no such hesitation. In a rare moment, the Turnbull of old came out in a moment that harked back to his days as environment minister, when he had no problem talking up the dangers of climate change:

Certainly, larger and more frequent storms are one of the consequences that the climate models and climate scientists predict from global warming but you cannot attribute any particular storm to global warming, so let’s be quite clear about that.

Turnbull is incorrect about subtropical lows becoming more frequent, but he is right about climate scientists’ forecasts that storms will get bigger.

If national policies in Australia and around the world are not calibrated to the 2℃ guardrail, the energy we saw released by last week’s storms will pale compared to what might be in store for future generations.

Referring to the Eemian period of 120,000 years ago, which was the last time the global average temperature was as high as the threshold that the Paris agreement is trying to avoid, scientists are uncovering evidence of storms that were of an order not compatible with the built environments of today’s human settlements.

In recent research, James Hansen, the author of the book Storms Of My Grandchildren, points to the puzzle of giant rocks in the Bahamas, up to one thousand tonnes, that are in a place they just shouldn’t be. Scientists warn these geological freaks harbour a terrifying secret – epic superstorms capable of tossing around boulders like bored Olympians.

But so as to reassure voters, both leaders did talk up the importance of mitigating damage (through the likes of building levies) – but not mitigating climate change itself.

While it was remarkable for Turnbull to discuss climate change at all in this election campaign, he failed to join the dots between the adequacy of the Coalition’s emissions reduction targets for Australia realising a responsible contribution to avoiding a 2℃ threshold.

Social media as a barometer of climate concern

A likely explanation as to why Turnbull in particular is reasserting climate change and the reef as an issue – but not asserting any kind of policy that will fix it – may be his reverence for the power of social media, and what it is telling his media team about neglecting climate change.

An analysis of 150,000 conversations on social media in Australia for the first three weeks of the election campaign reveals climate change is among the top five political topics Australians are talking about on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.

More than half of the discourse is negative towards each leader, with only 22% positive about Turnbull and 35% positive on Shorten. But of these posts, grouped around leaders, the only issue (other than negative gearing) that is common to discussion of both leaders is climate change. Climate change also stands out as the only issue in the top five that was not being aired by the leaders.

The analysis, by Meltwater, is significant in that it is so different from a poll. Those who answer a poll know that it will be aggregated and is likely to have a political impact. Their answers may not actually reflect their concerns as much as it does the desire to have an impact.

Analysis of social media, however, is more likely to capture the “backstage” of what people are actually concerned about in their daily conversations.

Could it be that, buried in these backstage conversations, are clues as to why voters are turning away from the major parties? And that neglect of climate change is a big part of this? Could it also be why the major parties have made panicked preference decisions to block the Greens and independents, who combined may capture 25% of the national vote?

There is evidence also that the Coalition’s announcements on the Great Barrier Reef are calculated to neutralise social media concern about it as an issue.

Perhaps it is its focus groups or it could be simply the impact of talk show mega-star Ellen DeGeneres’ “Remember the Reef” video-message campaign.

The campaign, which is also part of a promotion for a new film, Finding Dory, has seen Disney, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority collaborate on raising awareness about the threats to the reef.

But more remarkable than this campaign was the barrage of tweets from Environment Minister Greg Hunt, strenuously defending the government’s management of the reef.

A further tweet personally invited DeGeneres out to visit the reef to allay her fears. But the fear is mostly coming from Hunt it seems, that the Disney campaign really could get out of control, based on an animated movie that is to be screened just two weeks out from election day.

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