Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 1.3: Indigenous Peoples, Mining and Climate Change
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In the face of overwhelming evidence of the need to cut
greenhouse gas emissions, all the major global coal mining
companies continue with projections for annually increasing
production up to and including 2030. 26 Chinese production—
plus increased production from major companies such as
BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Peabody—all suggest that without
external limitations, output—and therefore emissions—
will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. It seems that
short of strong and enforceable legislation, corporations will
continue coal mining despite the clear evidence of its fundamental
contribution to global warming.
Much of this expansion would be impossible without
government support. The International Energy Agency (IEA)
states in a 2010 report that global subsidized consumption
of fossil fuels amounted to US$557 billion in 2008, including
$40 billion for coal consumption. 27 In June 2010, a draft
European Commission document showed that the European
Union was considering 12 more years of state aid for coal,
even as the Group of 20 (G20) nations prepared to collectively
discuss phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. 28 In their report, the
IEA suggests that—compared to a baseline in which subsidy
rates remain unchanged—global subsidy phase-out would
cut global energy demand by 5.8 percent, and energy-related
carbon dioxide emissions by 6.9 percent by 2020. 29 The
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) has urged governments to end fossil fuel subsidies,
arguing that this could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
10 percent. 30
Another way in which the governments of industrialized
countries sustain and even encourage coal use is through the
carbon trading system, which is practiced in the European
Union and encouraged by the Kyoto Protocol. Participating
governments have already given large quantities of free carbon
permits to companies which use coal to generate electricity.
Some of the least acceptable of the permits have been given to
steel and aluminium producers. Carbon trading permits can
either be used to continue producing high levels of carbon
dioxide or traded for cash. In this way, heavily polluting companies
can both carry on polluting and profit from enabling
others to pollute. 31