US defence of fossil fuels at UN climate meeting, angers many

It may seem somewhat bizarre but the United States is hosting an event defending fossil fuel use at United Nations climate talks in Germany, in a move blasted by green energy campaigners and conference president Fiji.

The US embassy in Berlin said President Donald Trump’s special assistant on energy and environment, George David Banks, would address the meeting.

The French newsagency AFP reports the Trump administration’s hosting of the event, entitled “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation”, is perceived as an affront by many attending the annual round of climate talks.

Hosted in Bonn this year, the negotiations are tasked with designing a rulebook for executing the UN sponsored Paris Agreement adopted by nearly 200 countries in 2015.

Its goal is to limit average global warming to under two degrees Celsius , or 1.5°C if possible, so as to avert calamitous storms, drought and sea-level rise.

To global outrage, President Trump announced in June he would pull the US out of the hard-fought global pact, which aims to reduce reliance on coal, oil and natural gas.

The US is now the only country in the world that has opted to be outside the agreement.

“As the world seeks to reduce emissions while promoting economic prosperity, fossil fuels will continue to play a central role in the energy mix,” the embassy statement said.

“Given the importance of energy access and security the US endeavours to continue working closely with others to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.”

Francis Brooke from the office of vice president Mike Pence will also attend the “side event”, along with Barry Worthington, executive director of the US Energy Association which gathers corporations and government agencies.

From the private sector, the attendance list includes executives of gas giant Tellurian, the world’s largest private coal company, Peabody, and nuclear company NuScale Power.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, which presides over this year’s UN climate conference, said the role of coal in climate change was undisputable.

“I really don’t want to get into an argument with the United States of America, but we all know what coal does, and the effects of coal mining and of course the burning of coal,” he told journalists.

“There’s really no need to talk anymore about coal because we all know what coal does with regard to climate change.”

Karen Orenstein of environmental group Friends of the Earth described the event as “a slap in the face to countries that are party to the Paris Agreement, literally every nation on Earth except the US”.

President Trump’s actions, she added, showed “callous disregard, and possibly even genuine malevolence, toward people in poor countries whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened, diminished, and in some cases destroyed by the devastating effects of climate change”.

Professor Piers Forster, a climate change expert at the University of Leeds, insisted there was no such thing as “clean coal”.

“Coal is not clean, it is dangerous,” he said via the Science Media Centre in London.

New data showed that China and the US together emitted about 12 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from coal burning, a number that needs to “rapidly reduce” for any chance at reaching the 1.5°C target, he said.

“Currently, less than 0.1 per cent of these carbon emissions from coal are captured and stored.

“Those who argue coal has a future are putting the planet under real risk.”