The Green-Driven Surrender of the West

Members of the G7 economic alliance, meeting in Turin, Italy, agreed Tuesday to end usage of coal for power generation by the year 2035, a mere 11 years into the future. But, as with so many international deals like this one, there’s a catch. 

Really, there are two catches. The first is the addition of a qualification stating the member countries will phase coal out by 2035, or “in a timeline consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5°C temperature rise within reach, in line with countries’ net-zero pathways”. That’s a pretty major exception in and of itself yet the ministers agreed to add a second qualifier, stating the deal will apply only to what they refer to as “unabated” coal plants, defined as any plant that is not accompanied by a probably hugely costly and energy-hungry carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. 

The pair of major qualifiers were reportedly needed to obtain sign-off by the US, Germany and Japan, all of whose power grids still rely on coal to provide a significant share of baseload power. The usage of CCS to provide abatement for coal-fired plants is also conveniently consistent with the new Clean Power Plan issued by the Biden EPA a week earlier.