India is hungry for energy. Over 173 power plants, all of them coal-fired, will be built to power the nation’s high-tech industries and booming cities.
This is accelerating an ongoing “coal rush” which has put our dirtiest fossil fuel at the heart of India’s breakneck growth, and could soon make a single state, Andhra Pradesh, one of the world’s top 20 carbon emitters.
On 101 East, filmmaker Orlando de Guzman takes a dark journey through the coal belt of Jharkhand and West Bengal, to look at the winners and losers of this booming industry.
In Jharia, in the federal state of Jharkhand, around 600,000 people live in the middle of one of India’s biggest coal mining areas. There’s nothing in it for most of them. Quite the opposite: the soil, the water and the air are now contaminated, of all things in an area that was previously rich in woodland.
The story of Jharia is the story of how the greed for profit, vested interests and the thirst for power have prevailed and led to one of the areas richest in minerals in India remaining so economically backward. For the mining marginalises the poor and deepens social inequality in the name of economic development, from which mostly only metropolises like Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai profit.
Shortly after 1971, the coal mines were nationalized. Since then, their operator is the BCCL (Bharat Coking Coal Limited) which thus controls one of the biggest coal deposits in India and one of the biggest in the whole of Asia. BCCL conducts mainly opencast mining. Mostly illegally, since in 97 percent of the cases no license has been granted. Opencast mining is more profitable than deep mining. The productivity and extracted quantities are significantly higher than in deep mining and cost less. In Jharia, coal is mined in the villages, next to the houses, in short, on people’s doorsteps. Even on the streets, on railway lines, in the station itself, which is not a station any more, coal is mined.
Really, the mined area should be filled with sand and water afterwards, so it can be cultivated again. For cost reasons, however, this never happens, which leads to the coal seams coming into contact with oxygen and catching fire. India has the most coal blazes worldwide. BCCL representatives estimate there are 67 fires in Jharia alone.
The opencast mining areas are densely populated. Forty percent of Jharia’s inhabitants live in the burning, fire spewing countryside. The ground is subsiding, houses are collapsing. In addition, the smoke and vapours contain poisons, amongst others carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, but also soot, methane and arsenic. The damage to health is enormous. Lung and skin diseases, cancer and stomach disorders are only some of the illnesses with which the people in Jharia have to fight with.
The blazes are in fact controllable, contrary to the BCCL representatives’ opinion. They could be extinguished with the application of water, clay and sand. But nothing happens. Because there is no political interest in extinguishing these blazes at all. Rather, it is in the operator’s interest that even more land catches fire – and thus becomes uninhabitable. BCCL needs still more land on which coal can be mined in order to achieve the extracted quantities planned for the current and coming business years. And underneath Jharia lie more than 1,000 million tons of coal.
The interests and influence of the operator are too strong, so the mines stay and the mining will still be carried on. In addition, the Mafia has the area around Jharia firmly in its hands and makes a not inconsiderable profit through blackmail, bribery and other criminal activities.
Instead of doing something against the fires, one of the biggest resettlement plans worldwide is to be carried out: Jharia Action Plan (JAP). The inhabitants of the areas on fire are supposed to be resettled in Belgaria, a new town in the middle of the jungle. There is no school there, no medical care, no shops, and, worst of all, no jobs at all. So many decide to stay in Jharia. On the fire. In spite of the blazes. In spite of the perpetual grey veil that lies over the town. In spite of the air pollution, which makes breathing almost impossible on a bad day. And in spite of the coal dust, which settles like a second skin on the body.
A UN environmental team has arrived in Australia for a crunch 10-day assessment of the Great Barrier Reef, warning that the coral ecosystem is at a “crossroads” due to the soaring activity of the mining industry in the World Heritage Area.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) visit comes amid fears that the reef’s world heritage listing, which it has held since 1981, could be placed in jeopardy after rapid escalation in coal exports and gas exploration.
“The Great Barrier Reef is definitely at a crossroad and decisions that will be taken over the next one, two, three years might potentially be crucial for the long-term conservation [of the reef],” said Fanny Douvere, from Unesco’s World Heritage marine programme.
Australia’s coal boom is set to open up the previously undeveloped Galilee Basin in central Queensland, greatly increasing the number of developments along the state’s coast, where the 1,800-mile reef stretches.
The proposed infrastructure includes Abbott Point, which would become the largest coal export port in the world.
At full capacity, the expansion would see more than 10,000 coal-laden ships a year cross the Great Barrier Reef by the end of the decade – a sizeable increase on the 1,722 vessels that entered the World Heritage Area in 2011.
Environmentalists are concerned that ships navigating reef passageways – many of which are narrower than the English Channel – will run aground, as a Chinese vessel did in 2010, tearing a two-mile gash into the coral and spilling several tonnes of oil.
There are also warnings that the reef’s six species of turtle, including the endangered loggerhead and Olive Ridley turtles, and the snubfin dolphin, Australia’s only endemic dolphin, would be affected by any mass industrialisation of the Queensland coast.
In a move that should electrify the clean energy movement across the country, the tireless champions with the Chicago Clean Power Coalition have announced that Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of multinational giant Edison International, will soon shut down the Windy City’s two Model-T-era coal-fired plants.
The historic victory, after a decade-long battle, marks a shift in the clean energy battle for the country: If Chicago, once hailed as the “world’s largest market of coal,” can go coal free, the rest of the nation must surely be close behind them.
Thanks to one of the most determined, diverse and successful clean energy campaigns in the nation–including a breakthrough campaign to pass a Clean Power ordinance–the retirement of the decrepit and deadly Fisk and Crawford coal-fired plants will end the century-long reign of the most toxic polluters in the heartland.
Birthplace of Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the world, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune asked in 1892: “Doubtless the end of the coal, at least as an article of a mighty commerce, will arrive within a period brief in comparison with the ages of human existence… How long can the earth sustain life?” The editorial lambasted Americans for our lack of vision and sense of energy conservation, and our need to “invent appliances to exhaust with ever greater rapidity the hoard of coal.”
The Chicago Clean Power Coalition will hold a press conference in Dvorak Park on Thursday to formally announce the agreements signed by Midwest Generation, the Clean Power Coalition, and the City of Chicago.
“Today’s victory demonstrates that people shouldn’t have to tolerate toxic polluters in their backyard,” said Rosalie Mancera of Pilsen Alliance. “By working with our neighbors and elected officials, Chicagoans have finally won the right to breathe clean air.”
“For over ten years our communities have been fighting for the right to breathe clean air, clean land and clean water. Today we are ending over 100 years of pollution for profits and showing the power of community,” said Kimberly Wasserman of LVEJO. “Hopefully, this is the first of many victories in Illinois, as citizens and politicians come together to hold corporate polluters accountable and usher in a clean energy future.”
“Fisk and Crawford have been polluting Chicago neighborhoods for over 100 years,” said Jerry Mead-Lucero of PERRO. “Our work is not over when the plants close. Midwest Generation and the City of Chicago must continue working to ensure these sites are properly cleaned up and returned to safe, productive use for our communities.”
As a unique city-wide effort, the Chicago Clean Power Coalition includes: Chicago Youth Climate Coalition, Eco-Justice Collaborative. Environmental Law and Policy Center, Environment Illinois, Greenpeace, Faith in Place, Illinois Student Environmental Coalition, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Pilsen Alliance, Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, Protestants for the Common Good, Rainforest Action Network Chicago, Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, Doctor’s Council SEIU, Sierra Club, and the Southeast Environmental Task Force.
“This is a major victory for the people of Chicago!” said Pam Richart, Eco Justice Collaborative. “With the closure of the Fisk & Crawford coal plants, our city takes a bold step away from dirty energy and the harm it brings to human health, while at the same time opening the way for a clean energy future. We look forward to working with community groups and the City to ensure that these sites are cleaned up and restored for safe, productive uses.”
“Chicago families have spoken: We have the right to breathe clean air, and we aren’t willing to tolerate old, dirty coal plants in Chicago neighborhoods that harm our health and foul our air,” says Faith Bugel, Senior Attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC). “This victory means cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner energy, and a safer environment for us all.”
“This is a victory for the people of Chicago, who have demonstrated that grassroots activism is more powerful than the special interests of corporate polluters. We hope other communities across the country will find new inspiration to stand up for their right to clean air and a safe climate, ” added Kelly Mitchell, Greenpeace Coal Campaigner.
In a bid to fast-track industrial projects, India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is opening up 25 percent of forests that were previously listed as “no-go” areas, reports the Hindustan Times. The designation will allow between 30 and 50 new industrial projects to go ahead rapidly, including road construction and coal mining.
Reportedly the changes came after industry representatives met with the Prime Minister’s Office, headed by Manmohan Singh, to complain that projects were being held up by environmental regulations, in some cases taking six years for approval. The industrial group was led by Ratan Tata, head of Tata Group, a massive conglomerate that works in steel, chemicals, solar power, energy transmission vehicles, and food products like tea and coffee among other industries. In response, the PMO not only removed protection for forest lands, but also promised approval for projects would be done in 60 days and forests would be cleared within 180 days.
“Based on the limited information we have, this is a very alarming development,” tropical ecologist William Laurance with James Cook University, who has recently spent time in India, told mongabay.com. “Infrastructure expansion—such as new roads, hydroelectric dams and mines—can have huge environmental impacts. They cause direct forest degradation and can also open up a Pandora’s Box of further problems—such as illegal land colonization and land speculation.”
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), around 19 percent of India is covered in natural forests, excluding monoculture plantations. Many of the remaining forests are degraded and fragmented. Since 2009 India has lost 36,700 hectares according to a recent assessment. The state of Andhra Pradesh saw the largest loss in forest, which government officials blamed on logging by the communist-Maoist group, the Naxals.
India has recently pledged to expand forest cover to around 33 percent of the country, however the Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, recently said such a target was “unrealistic.”
“India has already lost over 80 percent of its native forests and further forest loss and degradation are still advancing rapidly,” Laurace says. “The fast-tracking of big infrastructure projects can easily become a rubber stamp for bad development practices. Such ill-advised projects can have far greater environmental and human costs than the economic benefits they provide.”
India’s remaining forests are home to a wide variety of species, including Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), golden langurs (Trachypithecus geei), and the dhole (Cuon alpinus), each of which is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. India is one of 17 countries in the world that is considered “megadiverse” for its spectacular wealth of biodiversity.
