Need to know how much coal contributes to climate change? Curious about how many people die per year from coal pollution? Need stats on how many coal plants are planned around the world?
Endcoal.org is a new website launched today by a suite of environmental, social justice and health advocates from around the world, and it answers all these questions and many more. CAN Europe is supporting the new site as part of our ongoing European coal campaigning.
Endcoal.org is a resource for local communities, activists, students and researchers who want to learn more about the problems with coal and solutions to meet global energy needs. The website is packed with resources on the nexus between coal and climate, water, health, finance and economics, and mining. It features the latest news on coal, plus blogs from some of the leading international writers and activists on coal.
The site also hosts a brand new interactive map and database that tracks all planned coal plants around the world since 2010. The Coal Plant Tracker, developed by CoalSwarm, allows the user to find out how many coal plants are planned in their country, track stages of development, and access more detailed information on the projects. Currently 284 gigawatts of coal plants are under construction and an additional 1214 gigawatts are planned in 62 countries around the world. If all these projects were built, the greenhouse gases released would put us on track for a six degree Celsius rise in global temperatures, a fate akin to planetary collapse.
Yet a burgeoning global movement is stopping new coal plants and mines and pressuring governments and institutions to take action to end our dependence on coal. In the European Union, 109 proposed coal-fired power plants have been defeated. Since China’s air pollution crisis, mainly due to massive coal burning, 10 of China’s 34 provinces have banned the construction of new coal-fired power plants. Coal consumption in China dropped for the first time ever in the first three quarters of 2014, which indicates that China has decoupled GDP growth from coal growth.
Coal-burning in the US actually peaked in 2007 and has dropped by an astonishing 21%. US groups have defeated 179 new coal-fired power plants, and more than 177 existing plants are slated for retirement. Meanwhile, international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank have adopted policies restricting or eliminating support for coal plants.
While the movement to stop coal is growing, the coal industry is relentless in its push to mine and burn more coal. Endcoal.org is a place where the global movement on coal can share its stories, resources and news, and where people new to coal can come to learn about how to fight this dirty energy source.
