In Poland's Coal Heartland, UN Climate Summit A Golden Opportunity For Greenwash, Security Crackdown
Taking place in Poland’s coal heartland, this year’s climate talks are once again expected to provide a platform for more discussion on the future of coal. The fuel powered western countries through industrialisation but is also the dirtiest fossil fuel — meaning developing countries are being asked to largely ‘leapfrog’ this source of energy in favour of cleaner alternatives. The choice of the city of Katowice, which is home to the EU’s largest coal company Polska Grupa Górnicza (PGG), has angered some environmental campaigners who denounce Poland’s reluctance to fully engage in the UN process while still being influenced by a strong domestic coal industry.
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And indeed, the coal lobby is already out in force at this year’s meeting. Earlier this week, the Polish government announced that six state-owned companies, including Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW), the European Union’s largest high-quality coking coal company, and two other coal-sector companies would sponsor this year’s climate talks. In a statement, JSW said the partnership would guarantee “the company’s active participation in the event and the possibility of promoting pro-ecological changes in the mining sector”.
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Perhaps the highest-profile organisation partaking in a bit of creative marketing around their industry’s activity is the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) — a coalition of 13 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. Each year, just before the COP, the OGCI puts out a statement about how commited Big Oil is to the COPs goal of tackling climate change. Generally, the announcement reaffirms the industry’s commitment to being part of the solution to tackle climate change, while falling far short of promising to stop production of fossil fuels. Indeed, the industry generally backs a combination of massive new (government-aided) investment in technology to trap and store carbon dioxide emissions from its fossil fuel power plants, and a global carbon price — solutions that have been on the table for decades, but are economically or politically unpalatable for many countries.
Campaigners are generally unimpressed with such statements. They say that Big Oil backs solutions it knows have little chance of becoming reality, effectively entrenching the status quo, which is pushing the world towards run-away climate change. A quick wander around the shiny stalls that pretty much any energy company worth their salt brings to COP tells you just how prevalent this kind of messaging is — Shell’s emphasis on solar over genuine soul-searching, BP’s emphasis on moving Beyond Petroleum despite doing no such thing, and Statoil’s strategic rebranding to Equinor to remove “oil” from its name but not its business model.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/11/28/what-you-need-know-about-upcoming-un-climate-talks-poland