Friday, October 28, 2011

This May Be Why the Kyoto Protocol Was Never Going to Work: "The emergence of Indian coal barons"

Thank God the Senate voted 95-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution not to ratify back in 1997. The Protocol was an economic suicide note that guaranteed the decline of developed economies while China and India powered on with coal. All for an estimated .007 degrees Celsius reduction in global temperature.

That was the magic number that the cap-and-trade pushers never mentioned. .007 degrees.
If you go through the CI archives you'll probably figure out that I was not in favor of transferring mom's bank account to Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Cantor CO2e and the rest of the Carbonistas.

From the Times of India:
MUMBAI: What is common between Anil Ambani, Gautam Adani, Madhusudan Rao and G V K Reddy? In a race to secure coal assets to fuel their power plants, these billionaires are fast emerging as global coal barons. The companies that they run - Reliance Power, Adani Power, Lanco Infratech and GVK - will feature among the top 10 coal miners in the world, behind Peabody and Shenhua Energy, once they start coal production in coming years.

Peabody Energy, which claims to be the world's largest private sector coal producer, had registered sales of 246 million mt in 2010 and Shenhua Energy's coal production is pegged at 256 million mt according to its website. However, government-owned Coal India is the world's single largest coal producer with an annual production in excess of 430 million mt. At peak production, some of these Indian firms will have excess coal production compared to such global miners as Rio Trinto, Anglo American, Xstrata, Russian Suek and Indonesian Adaro. Adani, with a resource base in excess of 8 billion mt of coal, plans to produce 200 million mt per annum at peak production, while others plan to produce over 100 million mt per annum each in the coming years.

Increasing Imports: In spite of having the world's third biggest coal resources after US and China, Indian firms are aggressively acquiring coal assets overseas as most of Indian coal reserves lie in forest areas and cannot be mined for environmental concerns. Indian coal imports are, therefore, seen rising against a stagnant output and rising demand. Total coal imports in 2010 were 55 million mt, which is likely to climb to 186 million mt by
2014 because of aggressive ramp-up plans by steel and power companies. Michael Cooper, associate editor, Platts International Coal Report, has another reason....MORE
Starting on 28 November the caravanserai that is the U.N. climate confab will be meeting in Durban.
From our 2010 post "Climateer Line of the Day: Carbon Traders Edition":
At the big climate confab in Bali (the one before the meetings in Copenhagen, Bonn and Bangkok but after the gabfests in Nairobi and Montreal) the International Emissions Trading Association was the largest single Non-Governmental Organization with fully 7 1/2% of the 4483 NGO delegates. There were another 5000 of these jet-setters accredited to various national governments with maybe 1500 journalists reporting on the brutal conditions:
The hotel where British ministers will stay, the Westin Resort Nusa Dua, describes the experience of staying there as "sheer indulgence."
Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, Phil Woolas, junior environment minister, and Gareth Thomas, the junior minister for international development will each have £330-a-night suites around the hotel's "free form" pool, with their own teak-floored bedroom, living room and dining room....
-Telegraph