Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected a final appeal from a coal company after it and the ministry of energy and mines lost a lawsuit filed by the Indonesian NGO Walhi three years earlier.
Energy think tank Ember reports that the share of coal-based electricity in India has been on the decline since 2018.
The Bank of France, which manages 22 billion euros, will no longer invest in companies that generate more than 2 percent of their revenues from coal by the end of 2021 and will drop this threshold to zero percent by 2024.
Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and the Philippines have canceled nearly 45 gigawatts of proposed coal power projects, a figure equal to more than one-quarter of the total installed capacity of Germany.
The Philippines has stopped accepting new proposals for coal-based power projects to encourage investment in other energy sources like natural gas and renewables, the government’s energy chief said.
The last plant in Oregon, which opened in 1977, was pushed to close by a lawsuit filed against General Electric for air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions concerns.
Even though Poland produces more coal than any other nation in the European Union, the industry’s inefficiencies and plummeting global prices have reduced its 70 mines in 1990 to about 25 today; in that same period, the number of miners has plummeted from 388,000 to 80,000.
Electricity from coal power plants has declined from 26.9% of US electricity generation in the first 7 months of 2018 to 17.7% in the first 7 months of 2020. That’s down from 33% in 2015, 39% in 2014, 45% in 2010, and 50% in 2005.
The decision follows a petition by the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca to allow a ballot referendum on mining near water sources, including near the Tomebamba, Machángara, Norcay, Yanuncay, and Tarqui rivers.
The new policy reverses an earlier decision to allow two firms to drill and survey for coal in the world-renowned Hwange National Park, home to more than 40,000 elephants and a population of endangered black rhino, as well as leopard and painted dog conservation programs.
