WORLD WILDLIFE FUND GOES PRO-COAL, SPLITTING GREENS

In a recent chat with a member of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), it emerged that RAN considers the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to be a much more moderate environmental group. The current debate over “clean” coal highlights the split between the moderate and activist perspectives.

Does the huge rise in developing world coal consumption make the compromised advocacy of carbon-capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology the only right thing to do? Or is the insistence that there is no such thing as “clean” coal the only morally justifiable position?

Activists consider “clean” coal to be an oxymoron for several reasons. First, it is far from a proven technology. Efforts to prove it have been so expensive the utilities and oil companies who set out to do so have often backed off.

Second, even if the technology works, coal mining is a devastation to the landscape. And transport is an emissions-intensive process.

Third, burning coal consumes and pollutes huge amounts of limited water resources.

For some, this is not a moral issue at all. Among the groups supporting the WWF position are a coal mining association and a coal miners’ union. For them, this is an existential matter.

WWF believes the dilemma of coal power will persist because developing nations, conservative utilities, power producers and diverse vested interests will tend to be more concerned with their own bottom lines than the earth’s well being. Until the vested interests see it for themselves, only governments can offer them a reason to believe in the preservation of the commons. By developing CCS, at least some of the harm might be mitigated. Or CCS will be proven a dead end.

Fact of life #1. (click to enlarge)

The worry activists have about WWF’s new position is that it confuses the politics of the issue and distracts from the urgency of building New Energy infrastructure.

Mark Wakeham, Environment Victoria: "If [WWF and allies] call on the Government to focus on carbon capture and storage, that will distract from energy efficiency and renewables…"

Several Australian environmental groups will live with CCS development if the price for it does not get charged to the taxpayers. The Australian Green Party believes CCS plans are a backdoor way for the new Labor Party government to ally with the coal industry and likens the government’s indemnification of the experimental programs to subsidized insurance governments give to the nuclear industry.

This is a vitally important debate to watch.

The IEA considers CCS an important mitigator. (click to enlarge)

Green groups in carbon plan rift
Chris Hammer (w/Adam Morton), April 15, 2008 (The Age)

WHO
World Wildlife Fund, the Australian Coal Association, the Climate Institute, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU); Steve Campbell, head of campaigns, Greenpeace Australia; Mark Wakeham, Environment Victoria; Don Henry, president, Australian Conservation Foundation; Christine Milne, Senator, Australian Green Party

Not high on WWF's list, but on the list. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Seeking to advance the development of carbon-capture-and-sequestration (CCS) technology, WWF, the Australian Coal Association, the Climate Institute and CFMEU have joined to call for a Prime Minister’s Department-level taskforce. WWF’s participation is being taken by allies and opponents as an endorsement of “clean” coal.

WHEN
The groups want CCS demonstration plants being built by 2010 and wide use of the technology by 2020.

Not on the Greenpeace list. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
WWF, Greenpeace said, had taken a “coal industry position.”

WHY
- WWF has a noble and consistent history of environmental advocacy.
- WWF and its allies see the taskforce as (1) co-ordinating laws across federal/state jurisdictions; (2) overseeing the identification/mapping of underground storage sites; (3) developing a blueprint for common-use infrastructure (ex: pipelines); (4) monitor agreements: (5) develop an information campaign; (6) fast-track small demonstration projects.
- As now planned, any negative environmental damages from the experimental projects will be covered by taxpayer funds.

The theory. Still unproven. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Steve Campbell, head of campaigns, Greenpeace: "(Carbon capture and storage) won't be ready for at least another 12 years…We need to be putting public money into energy efficiency and renewables. We don't need public money to be poured into enormously profitable companies."
- WWF spokesman: "The taskforce itself could be funded by the Government. Most taskforces along these lines usually are…"
- Don Henry, president, Australian Conservation Foundation: "We believe the polluters, the big companies should pay [for CCS development and implementation]…"
- Christine Milne, Senator, Australian Green Party, on the government’s indemnifying the experimental projects against leakage damages: "That really bothers me, because this is exactly the same tactics that the nuclear industry has employed for a long time…"