Coal will be a major contributor to Australia’s economy, “well beyond 2030,” given the growth in global demand, the country’s resources minister said on Monday, a day after a United Nations envoy called on the country to phase out the fossil fuel.
In a speech in Canberra on Sunday, Selwin Hart, the United Nations special adviser on climate change, said Australia’s government should increase its efforts to phase out coal or else climate change will dramatically damage the country’s economy, reports Reuters.
Hart said that the Australian government should “seize the moment” and switch to renewables.
“If the world does not rapidly phase out coal, climate change will wreak havoc right across the Australian economy: from agriculture to tourism, and right across the services sector,” he said.
Australia’s reliance on coal-fired power has made the country one of the world’s largest carbon emitters per capita. However, the Conservative government has continued to back fossil fuel industries despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s assurances that Australia is on a path to net-zero carbon emissions, according to Euro News.
In a statement on Monday, Australia’s minister for resources and water, Keith Pitt, in a strong rebuke, said that the latest export figures show “the reports of coal’s impending death are greatly exaggerated and its future is assured well beyond 2030.”
“The future of this crucial industry will be decided by the Australian Government, not a foreign body that wants to shut it down costing thousands of jobs and billions of export dollars for our economy,” the 360-word statement read.
“Coal consumption throughout Asia is forecast by the International Energy Agency to grow over the next decade to meet the energy demands of countries like China, India, and South Korea,” Pitt said.
“Australia has an important role to play in meeting that demand. Coal will continue to generate billions of dollars in royalties and taxes for state and federal governments, and directly employ over 50,000 Australians.”
Australia is the world’s second-largest exporter of coal, and of the world’s 176 new coal projects, 79 of them are in Australia, according to Fitch Solutions’ Global Mines Database.
