Think Progress

There’s an argument within the fossil fuel industry that access to fossil fuels like coal and oil are necessary for developing nations to help pull themselves out of poverty. A new report released by Oxfam, however, warns that extracting more coal won’t help energy-poor countries build their economies, but instead will worsen global warming and entrench vulnerable communities in poverty.

The report, titled “More Coal Equals More Poverty,” argues that the vast majority of energy-poor households in developing countries lack access to a traditional electricity grid, meaning traditional energy sources like coal would do little to help bring electricity to those currently living without it.

Moreover, the report warns, extracting and burning fossil fuels like coal would release more greenhouse gas emissions into the air, worsening the impacts of climate change. And those impacts — increased heat waves, rising sea levels, and more variable growing seasons — will have an outsized impact on the world’s poor, many of which depend on subsistence farming for food and economic support.

To maintain a 50 percent chance of staying within 2°C of warming — the limit agreed upon in the Paris climate agreement — the report notes that 80 percent of the world’s coal reserves would need to remain untapped. That, in turn, means the world would have to quickly move away from coal power to low-carbon forms of energy, like wind and solar.

“Renewables are the clear answer to bringing electricity to those who currently live without it,” the report says. “The real cost of burning more coal will be measured in further entrenched poverty — through the escalating impacts of climate change and humanitarian disasters, increasing hunger and deaths and disease caused by pollution.”

The report was specifically aimed at the Australian government, which has been supportive of a proposed coal mine in Queensland, Australia; if built, it would be the largest coal mine in the country’s history. The federal resource minister has called the mine “great news,” and argued that it would help boost both regional and Australian economies.