|
 Kiribati's 100,000 people live on 32 atolls in the central Pacific,
most of which are less than six meters above sea level and are
suffering coastal erosion as the world's ice caps melt.
"Let us join together as a global community and take action now,"
President Anote Tong wrote in a letter to world leaders, ahead of a
U.N. summit on climate change in Paris in December.
"I urge you to support this call for a moratorium on new coal mines
and coal mine expansions," he wrote.
A draft negotiating text for the Paris meeting of world leaders, due
to agree a U.N. climate pact, include options for cutting carbon
emissions to net zero, perhaps by 2050 or 2100. No mention is made
specifically of coal mining.
When burnt, coal releases more heat-trapping gases than oil or
natural gas. That has increasingly made it the target of calls for a
shift to renewable energies such as wind or solar power to stem
global warming.
Welcoming Tong's appeal, Nicholas Stern, of the London School of
Economics and president of the British Academy science group, said
coal caused both warming and air pollution.
"The use of coal is simply bad economics, unless one refuses to
count as a cost the damages and deaths now and in the future from
air pollution and climate change," he said in a statement.
Among other appeals, Pope Francis said in an encyclical in June that
the use of "highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be progressively
replaced without delay", at odds with some investments in coal by
the U.S. Catholic church.
[to top of second column] |
The head of environmental group Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, who was
visiting Kiribati on Thursday, said 80 percent of coal reserves
should be left in the ground. "We know the science and we know the
end of the age of coal is coming," he said.
The coal industry says new technology can cut emissions. Canada's
Saskatchewan Power opened the world's first utility-scale coal-fired
power plant last year fitted with equipment for capturing and
storing carbon dioxide.
Last year, Kiribati bought 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) of land on
higher ground in Fiji to back up food production, under threat from
erosion and storms blowing salt water onto farmland.
The U.N.'s panel of climate scientists says sea levels could rise by
between 26 and 82 cms (10 and 32 inches) by the late 21st century
after a gain of 19 cms since 1900.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
