Only eight EU countries to phase out coal by 2030
By Paul Homewood
The EU said Tuesday that eight of its 28 member countries aim to phase out coal-powered electricity by 2030, triggering charges it is missing the mark under the Paris climate deal.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it received the pledges as contributions to the bloc’s efforts to deliver on the landmark 2015 deal.
"More and more member states are making the political commitment to phase out coal in the next decade," EU climate and energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said.
Canete said that among the European Union countries introducing or confirming such timelines, France intends to phase out coal by 2022—before Italy and Ireland by 2025.
Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland aim to do so by 2030, the Spanish commissioner told a press conference in Brussels.
Standing by Canete, commission vice president Maros Sefcovic called the pledges "quite a significant signal coming from quite an important number of member states."
The commission added that Germany, the EU’s most powerful economy and biggest polluter, has also indicated it will set "an end date" for coal-based electricity.
An EU official told AFP the remaining 20 countries, including heavily coal-dependent Poland, had not submitted timelines for weaning themselves off the fossil fuel.
Berlin-based Climate Analytics said the impact of the pledges was limited as the eight countries account for less than 20 percent of the EU’s total installed coal capacity.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-eu-countries-phase-coal.html
Indeed the situation is dire, as the eight countries only accounted for 24% of the EU’s coal generation in 2017. (This excludes UK generation, as the article ignores it completely, presumably because of Brexit).
https://euracoal.eu/info/euracoal-eu-statistics/
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Again excluding the UK, coal power supplies 23% of the EU’s electricity.
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Bad news for UK if Netherlands actually does it!
Well, according to R4 Today this morning, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, having sold his guitars for £13.3M has decided to donate the windfall to Client Earth.
“Why”, asked BBC man, “have you chosen them?”
“Because they are running a campaign to outlaw coal”, says Waters.
“But how will that help”
“The planet is in a critical way and my grand-children will not have what we’ve got now. If we do nothing they will inherit a damaged planet” (I paraphrase) “There is a massive consensus. 97% of climate scientists say so. We have to believe them and do something about climate change”.
Curious, I thought. I would bet that Lord Lawson has a far better understanding of climate change and especially about the scam that is the 97% consensus, but he is pretty much banned from the BBC. Meanwhile, people like old rock guitarists can spout any old nonsense and never be challenged.
Paul, it’s worth a listen if you can find it on iPlayer. Around 7:45, I think, this morning.
There is no reason to believe musicians are any more intelligent than any of the rest of us. There’s even some that listen to the rantings of Geldof.
Em, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. I would imagine that his carbon footprint over the years would be roughly comparable to one of those small island nations that are yet to sink beneath the waves because they are growing in size, rather than sinking, as a result of all that pesky global warming that was supposed to send them all down to old Davey’s Locker by now. The stupid, it burns!
Who ever runs Water’s Twitter account lives on the Dark side of the Loon
..continuous mad socialism and eco-lunacy etc
His last two tweets are the same
I commented on the one with way fewest replies
I think that you’ll find that it was David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) who’s been selling his guitars.
It was Waters being interviewed.
Oh there is another tweet
Apparently Water’s is well in with a pro-Palestinian group BDS
it is frequently labelled as a hater of Jews
Waters FB rant against Germans and their Government
Seems it was Gilmour
I hope the plan to ban coal does not rely on burning trees from North America, or elsewhere.
With that thought, the question comes to mind: What do the countries intend to use to produce electricity?
Perhaps restricting usage is part of the plan. Lights and heat for 3 hours per day, maybe!
More electric autos seems to be at cross-purpose.
What is left? Industrial wind and solar, and big dams.
In Germany’s case, mostly Russian gas. Goodbye to energy security 😦
That is with the assumption that the majority will be able to afford electricity with all the manufacturing gone and most other jobs too.
Those inter-connectors wont be of much use.
http://gridwatch.co.uk/
Paul, the notification email for this post came at 3pm Saturday
but without a title or intro
It just said
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
So, what will happen to the huge wad of money that Mr. Gilmore has donated to a climate change charity? Hmmm, what does a well funded charity that is dedicated to solving a non existent problem find to do with its cash? I’m sure they will be able to fund lots and lots of highly paid non jobs with it.