Skip to main content

India No 1 in world coal mining boom, thanks to Coal India, Adani Group: German NGO

Urgewald, a German environment and human rights NGO, which claims to be working for establishing strong environmental and social standards for the international finance industry, has called India "the number one hotspot of the coal mining boom" in the world. It states this in a report "The 2023 Global Coal Exit List (GCEL): Failing the Phase-Out", prepared by Urgewald and more than 40 NGO partners, seeking to offer in-depth information on over 1,433 companies operating worldwide along the thermal coal value chain.
Stating that India's coal production "already reached a historic high of 893 million tons last year", the report, released a few weeks after the UN’s Climate Ambition Summit in New York, quotes the goal set by India’s Ministry of Coal and Mines, according to which, the country’s annual coal production would rise to 1.5 billion tons by 2030.
"To fulfill this plan, the government has auctioned off 92 new coal mining concessions since 2020; hundreds more are in the pipeline", says Urgewald in the report, which approvingly quotes Joe Athialy, director of the Centre for Financial Accountability, Delhi, as saying, “What is being auctioned off here are the traditional homelands of hundreds of thousands of India’s tribal people and forest areas that are incredibly rich in biodiversity and play a key role in maintaining water cycles. It’s absurd to pretend this immense destruction is in the national interest.”
Stating that of the top three coal mining developers, two are from India, the report says, "The world’s top three coal mine developers are Coal India with projects totaling 591 million tons of new coal production per year, China Energy Investment with 169 million tons and the Adani Group with 94 million tons."
It continues, "While the first two companies are state-owned, the Adani Group belongs to the billionaire Gautam Adani whose business has profited time and again from his close ties to the Modi government. Today, Adani is the world’s largest private coal mine developer."
The report adds, "The conglomerate owns coal mines in three countries, is a major trader and transporter of coal, operates a 16 GW coal plant fleet (with another 10 GW in the pipeline), and plans to build a huge US$ 4 billion coal-to- plastics facility in India. While one of the Adani Group’s 9 listed subsidiaries – Adani Green Energy – develops solar projects, the Group’s renewable investments are dwarfed by its enormous coal portfolio."
Claiming that there is "a pervasive pattern of intercompany lending, including transactions between Adani Green Energy and Group entities involved in coal expansion", about which controversial short-seller Hindenburg Research's 106-page report and subsequent investigations state, the report says, "Filings by the State Bank of India have shown that shares from Adani Green Energy and other Group subsidiaries were used as collateral in a credit facility for Adani’s enormous Carmichael coal mine in Australia."
“Adani is a stark example of why responsible investors need to divest all subsidiaries of coal developers. It’s an illusion to believe that investments in the green arm of a company aren’t cross-subsidizing its other activities,” comments Urgewald director Schuecking.
The report regrets, with over 7.2 billion tons, "the world’s thermal coal production reached an alltime high in 2022" with "new coal mines still on the horizon in 31 countries." It adds, "All in all, companies on the GCEL are planning to develop new thermal coal mining projects with a total capacity of 2.5 billion tons per year, an amount equal to over 35% of the world’s current production" -- with India all set to experience "coal mining boom", as its coal production having reached "a historic high of 893 million tons last year."
While releasing the the GCEL list, the report quotes Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald, says, “The overall picture that our data delivers is bleak. Out of the 1,433 companies on the GCEL, only 71 companies have announced coal exit dates. Meanwhile, 577 companies are still developing new coal assets."
According to the report, "Despite coal plant closures in some parts of the world, the global coal plant fleet has seen a net growth of 186 GW since the Paris Agreement was signed. To put this into perspective: 186 GW are more than the operating coal plant fleets of Germany, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia combined."
It continues, "According to the 2023 GCEL, companies are still planning to develop an additional 516 GW of new coal-fired capacity. If built, these projects would increase the world’s current installed coal-fired capacity by 25%."
According o the report, "Two-thirds of this new capacity is planned in China, which has been ramping up its coal power plans since 2022, when drought diminished the country’s hydropower output and record-breaking heat waves caused electricity demand to skyrocket."
It adds, "Out of the 39 countries where new coal power plants are still in the pipeline, the largest capacity additions are planned in India (72 GW), Indonesia (21 GW), Vietnam (14 GW), Russia (12 GW) and Bangladesh (10 GW)."

Comments

TRENDING

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.  

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members.  As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

From SECI CMD to #OpenToWork: Gujarat cadre ex-IAS RP Gupta’s curious LinkedIn journey

Recently, I wrote a blog on retired Gujarat cadre IAS bureaucrat RP Gupta, with whom I used to interact during my Gandhinagar Sachivalaya days as the Times of India man. Written in the backdrop of the Government of India controversially easing him out of his position as CMD of the PSU Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a special purpose vehicle to promote solar energy, the title of the  blog  — "RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?" — is self-explanatory about the blog’s contents.