State Leaders Diss Trump Coal Revival as US Pushes 'Cleaner' Fossil Fuels at Climate Talks

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BONN, GERMANY โ€“ From the United Nations climate summit in Bonn, Germany, Arnold Schwarzenegger declared he wasnโ€™t worried about Donald Trump โ€” not his threats to withdraw from the Paris agreement or his plan to bring backย coal.

โ€œImagine bringing back coal,โ€ laughed the former California governor. โ€œIn a time when coal is plummeting in the United States and all over the world โ€ฆ Itโ€™s like bringing back Blockbuster orย something.โ€

But that is exactly in line with the plan embraced by the Trump administration at these climate talks โ€” where coal deals are even rumored to be a possible outcome. Today the administration held its only organized event of the summit, a โ€œside eventโ€ which promoted โ€œcleaner and more efficientโ€ fossil fuels and nuclear power as โ€œvitalโ€ ways to reach the goals of the Parisย accord.

But not everyone here from the U.S. is on board with thisย view.

โ€œThis is a sideshow, a blip,โ€ said Washington Governor Jay Inslee just before the U.S. event. โ€œThe world is not going to listen to someone who says climate change is aย hoax.โ€

Worldโ€™s Largest Coal Company at Climateย Summit

Speakers at the U.S. COP23 side event on fossil fuels and nuclear power
No one on the U.S. panel seemed very excited about answering questions. From left, George David Banks, Trump’s special energy assistant; Francis Brooke, Vice President Mike Penceโ€™s assistant; Barry Worthington, United States Energy Association; Amos Hochstein, Tellurian; Krutka, Peabody; Lenka Kollar, NuScale Power. Credit: Ashley Braun,ย DeSmog

In addition to two White House representatives, the controversial U.S. โ€œside eventโ€ featured speakers from Peabody Energy (the worldโ€™s largest private coal company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2016), Tellurian (a natural gas company investing big in exporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG), United States Energy Association (a trade group for energy companies, utilities, and organizations such as ExxonMobil, American Petroleum Institute, and of course Peabody and Tellurian), and NuScale Power (a small-scale nuclear energyย company).

More than an hour before the event began, hundreds of people lined up in an attempt to get one of the 180 seats in theย room.

Among those who were successful was a large group of youth and multiracial protesters from Indigenous Environmental Network, SustainUS, It Takes Roots, and 350.org, who filled about half the room. Early into the event, they disrupted the presentation for eight minutes by standing and singing, which included adapting the song โ€œGod Bless the USAโ€ with lyrics about standing up against coal mines andย greed.

Meanwhile, those protesters who remained outside staged a sit-in blocking the entrance to that part of the building. They chanted phrases such as โ€œKeep it in the ground. Climate justice nowโ€ until their counterparts marched out of the event. The group converged on a nearby stage to sing lyrics including, โ€œWe the people are ready to lead.โ€ That afternoon, the watchdog group Corporate Accountability International and a network of Pacific Islanders delivered a petition signed by 100,000 Americans asking the U.S. delegation to step aside from blocking progress at the climateย talks.

Cleaning up Coal and โ€˜Anti-Fossil Fuelย Biasโ€™

But back inside the U.S. event, the people speaking were mainly repeating the same types of messages for using fossil fuels that have been used before, though, depending on the speaker, the message became a little disjointed. A common assertion was that the world is using fossil fuels now and into the foreseeable future and should therefore continue investing in infrastructure to use coal moreย efficiently.

โ€œSome people believe there is no path forward for fossil fuels in a carbon constrained world,โ€ said Holly Krutka, Peabodyโ€™s Vice President of Coal Generation and Emissions Technologies. However, she holds that current technologies and those in the pipeline such as high-efficiency coal plants can help coal reduce its emissions, which is vital to achieving the goals of the Parisย Agreement.

Slide from Peabody's presentation about coal and reducing climate emissions
A slide from Peabody’s presentation on coal and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Ashley Braun,ย DeSmog

Both this event and one earlier in the day on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) pointed to forecasts that nations could only limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius with CCS. Yet the majority of CCS projects around the world use captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to pump more oil out of already drilled oil wells.

Barry Worthington of the United States Energy Association was very keen on the future of CCS. He commented how worried he and his colleagues at a United Nations committee on cleaner fossil fuel electricity were that this approach would be left out or discouraged in the final language of the Parisย Agreement.

Worthington also lamented what he considered an โ€œanti-fossil fuel biasโ€ from U.S. and international financial institutions such as the Export-Import Bank and U.S. Agency for International Development (AID). Alex Doukas atย Oil Change International, who was in the audience, was incredulous at this framing and questioned Worthingtonโ€™s numbers, countering that in recent years U.S. institutions have been funding fossil fuel projects โ€” though perhaps less coal โ€” at a six-to-oneย ratio.

Other justifications for continued fossil fuel use included the need to increase energy access for developing nations, an argument frequently made by but with little to show from energy executives, including now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. That argument is perhaps at odds with both Trumpโ€™s โ€œAmerica Firstโ€ policy of focusing on domestic issues as well as the idea that U.S. investment in LNG exports is a national security issue for other nations relying on one source of oil or gas.

Happy to supply the world with U.S. natural gas, Tellurianโ€™s Amos Hochstein, a former Obama administration official, was making an effusive case for LNG. However, he was operating under the assumptionย that natural gas was a โ€œcleanerโ€ fossil fuel despite theย climate-damaging methane pollution released during the full lifecycle of gas production.

Marching Forward Even withย Trump

When asked by a Chinese journalist, George David Banks, the presidentโ€™s energy advisor, defended Trumpโ€™s 2012 tweet about climate change being a hoax from the Chinese. He said that people forget about the rest of the tweet, that it was a hoax from the Chinese meant to undermine U.S. manufacturing, and that this defense of American competitiveness was the point ofย it.

Again, U.S. governors at the climate talks would have disagreed strongly with thisย point.

In a statement to the press before the U.S. event, Oregon Governor Kate Brown said, โ€œPresident Trump is rejecting the economy of the future,โ€ and went on to cite executive orders she recently signed supporting green buildings and electricย vehicles.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, California Governor Jerry Brown
Left, Oregon Governor Kate Brown, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and California Governor Jerry Brown. Credit: Ashley Braun,ย DeSmog

That morning, Gov. Inslee said that he understands climate change is more than just an environmental challenge: โ€œIt is the largest economic opportunity since the invention of the steamย engine.โ€

At the same U.S. governors event, Schwarzenegger reminded the audience that in light of the climate action coming from U.S. states, cities, and other local organizations โ€” a common message at the Bonn summit โ€” relying on the federal government was a mistake. California had cleaned up its notorious smog, and saved lives, by taking matters into its own hands. He expected states,ย industry,

โ€œI donโ€™t wait for the next election. I donโ€™t hope thereโ€™s a different president,โ€ he said. โ€œWe can march forward even with Trump being out there living in the Stone Age and thinking he has to bring backย coal.โ€

Main image: Washington Governor Jay Inslee and California’s current and former governors, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany. Credit: Ashley Braun,ย DeSmog

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Ashley is Senior Editor of DeSmog. She is also a freelance science and environmental journalist, and a contributing science writer for Natural History Magazine. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, Science, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Hakai Magazine, and Medium.

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