Around the developed world, the age of coal is drawing to a close. Coal-fired power plants are closing down just about everywhere. They are being replaced by renewables and gas-fired plants, or rendered unnecessary by improved energy efficiency. Some jurisdictions, including Ontario in Canada and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, are already coal-free.

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Others will follow, including whole nations like the UK, which is likely to close its last coal-fired station sometime in the 2020s. Even China, where new coal-fired power stations were opening on a weekly basis until recently, is reducing its use of coal. Many Chinese coal mines are closing, but the biggest effect has been to slash imports, down by around 30% so far this year.

The reasons for this development are not hard to find. Rapid reductions in the burning of fossil fuels are necessary if we are to prevent catastrophic climate change. Calculations of the “carbon budget” consistent with holding global warming to 2C show that global emissions of greenhouse gases must peak by around 2025 and decline thereafter.

Of all the fossil fuels, coal is by far the worst. It is twice as carbon-intensive as gas, its main competitor in electricity generation. And, in addition to its effects on the global climate, coal is responsible for toxic emissions of mercury, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants, estimated to cause millions of deaths every year.

The much-touted idea of “clean coal” has proved to be a fantasy. Carbon capture and storage, in which the exhaust gases from coal-fired power stations are captured and sequestered underground, is hopelessly uneconomic. One hugely expensive pilot project opened in Canada last year. Many others have been abandoned, such as Zerogen in Australia, White Rose in the UK and FutureGen in the US.

The idea implicit in the moralist case for coal is that India should recapitulate the Industrial Revolution.

Even research on the technology has largely dried up. Australian “clean coal” funding, once in the billions, has slowed to a trickle. Coal is, and always will be, dirty and dangerous.

The implication is obvious: the phasing out of fossil fuels must begin with coal. The world needs to stop opening new coal mines, and close existing mines in line with declining global use of coal.

This obvious message is not one that coal mining companies and the Australian government want to hear. Faced with the end of coal in the developed world, and even in China, they have switched to a new argument, notably propounded by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg.

Frydenberg and others argue that we have a moral obligation to supply coal to poorer countries like India, in order that they can take the cheapest possible path to meeting their needs for more energy.

It is far from obvious that coal is in fact the cheapest source of energy for India. Large parts of the country have yet to be connected to the electricity grid, and might do better to move straight to renewables. And the health effects of burning coal, serious in developed countries, are far worse in India. Pollution from coal is estimated to kill more than 100,000 people in India each year.

These health effects could be mitigated, and many lives saved, with modern pollution control technology but that would eliminate much of the cost advantage being touted by the “moralist” advocates of coal. The idea implicit in the moralist case for coal is that India should recapitulate the Industrial Revolution, based on heavy industry with all the associated pollution and poison.

In reality, India has done far better by leaping straight to the modern Internet economy, developing employment in everything from call centres to software development. In the same way, a full accounting of the costs would show that India would do better to jump straight to modern renewables than to expand 20th century technologies like coal and nuclear power.

But suppose for the sake of argument that, if the global cost of carbon dioxide emissions were disregarded, coal would be cheaper for India than the alternatives. It would still be more costly for the world as a whole. In these circumstances, the supposed moral argument for coal cannot be sustained.

People concerned about our moral obligations to developing countries have advocated policies under which rich countries like Australia would bear the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in poor countries like India, to the benefit of the world as a whole. There are many such measures on the table, and others that the Australian government could implement if it chose.

A policy based on the strict demands of morality would require a global emissions trading scheme, with equal emissions rights per person. The sale of unused rights would compensate India for forgoing the high-emissions route to development. Such a scheme is, of course, anathema to the global political right, whose opposition has doomed any prospect of its emergence.

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But there are less demanding options that could be followed. Most obviously, the purchase of rights under the Clean Development Mechanism would allow Australia to meet more ambitious emissions reductions targets, at very low cost, while providing financial benefits to poor countries like India. The Australian government has, so far, ruled this out.

Alternatively, more direct support could be provided for the development of renewable energy. The government has offered $200m to the Green Climate Fund, once derided by Tony Abbott as an international “Bob Brown fund”.

A tax on coal exports could be used to fund a massively increased contribution to this and similar funds, allowing India to make the jump to clean renewable energy. Of course, ideas like this would not be welcomed by the coal industry. But those advocates of coal who are motivated by a moral concern for the poor should welcome the chance to demonstrate their sincerity.