Germany to Put G-7 Coal Phaseout Push on Hold
By Paul Homewood
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is backtracking from its Group of Seven agenda to push globally for a speedier exit from coal.
Steffen Hebestreit, the Chancellor’s chief spokesman, said Russia’s war in Ukraine cast doubt over the practicality of asking the world’s richest countries to end the use of coal. Germany is the current holder of the rotating presidency of the G-7 nations, which have taken the lead in pursuing sanctions against Russia.
Despite political pressure to end the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal generation is expected to jump 9% from last year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s driven by the economic recovery from the pandemic, while countries are also scrambling to find alternative sources to Russian fossil fuels.
Germany, which has banned nuclear plants, and Japan, where atomic generation is just a fraction of what it once was, have fewer options than others. And so in Germany, coal-fired power plants that were once decommissioned are now being considered for a second life.
Germany’s “G-7 presidency is taking place in an international political situation which has clearly changed after Russia’s attack on Ukraine and its impact on energy supply,” said Hebestreit in response to questions on Wednesday.
“It’s questionable as to whether this topic will be directly addressed in this acute phase where we are working to become more independent from oil and gas,” he said.
As G-7 leader, the German government had previously said that its priorities include efforts to accelerate the global phaseout of coal. Ministers circulated a draft proposal, calling on countries to halt coal-fired power plants by 2030, according to Japan’s Asahi newspaper on Tuesday.
German officials presented the draft proposal to a preparatory meeting, ahead of an upcoming G-7 environment, climate and energy summit. But that prompted pushback from Japan’s government, which said it would continue to curb coal use at home, while also recognizing its energy security needs.
While Japan has said it will follow G-7 countries in banning Russian coal, the country has said it will be a longer-term goal for the resource-poor country. Russia supplies Japan with 13% of its coal for power generation, known as thermal coal, and 8% of the coal used in steelmaking.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Putin’s War and the war on carbon-based fuel appear to be causing renewed interest in nuclear technology. A lot can happen in ten years. I wonder which will kill us first, CO2 or fission?
The war in the Donbass, in Eastern Ukraine, has been going on for eight years, with over 14,000 deaths.
Yes. Interesting benefit of Russia’s intervention to end the Ukrainian civil war is bringing common sense into the Wests energy thinking. Of course eventually every country would have to re-embrace coal but russia has brought the shome to roost earlier. Well done Vlad.
South America has vast excess thermal coal supplies while BC Canada is a vast producer of industrial coking Coal. Changing suppliers is not easy but it can be done with relative ease.
Different coal types. Thermal coal for power stations is different grade to metallurgical coal ( coking) for steel making
but it highlights how in left wing BC the wholesale mining , mostly by strip mining and mountain top removal is embraced . But in conservative Alberta whos includes the same coal rich rRockies mountains is opposed . In both cases its historical reasons that matter
How long before the increasingly evident fact that we won’t be able to drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels any time soon allied to the obvious reluctance of increasing numbers of the World’s population to pay at best lip service to the AGW hoax leads to some backtracking on the doom and gloom prognostications from the “climate science” fraternity, likely caused by a reduction in government funding for their dodgy research?
Are the Global Warming alarmists heading towards the same extinction that befell the Ice Age alarmists of the 1960s and 1970s and the Ozone Hole brigade that succeeded them?
Interesting times!
catw666,
Standby for a repeat of The Coming Ice Age alarm. Remember the first time it took some only 2 years to switch their pronouncments from ICY doom & gloom to HEAT DEATH doom & gloom.
And I’m sure that the COP meetings will continue.
At least they have that option we are hooked on gas and tonight its providing 60% of electricity as the wind is non existent consuming nearly 50% of the UK gas output. The other thing to note is we have now been exporting gas to EU continuously for over 30 days which is unusually and the i/c’s are in export mode most days now. This is going to get interesting come winter.
Thanks to Inda, the IPCC is talking about a coal phase-down. So the Germans are fine.
Germany needs to get its coal burners up and running before winter. This morning all nth europe four i/cs are in export mode sending over 4GW over meaning gas is again having to be run flat out as there ain’t any wind. This looks like its going to be the norm now without Russian energy products and needs a massive rethink by NG and BEIS about the consequences on the UKs energy security as our own infrastructure is being sweated.
Reality sets in and the virtue signaling dies down.
And therein is the problem. The politicians and fanatics want this, but the actual populations are simply ignored.
>>political pressure to end the use