China/Phulbari8 Sep 2024 08:26
in march 2024, a planned mine associated with the phulbari power station – a fiercely contested project that has been proposed in various forms for decades and has resulted in the death of at least three protestors – secured a $1bn funding agreement with powerchina.
though the power station was not included in this initial financing agreement, china has not explicitly ruled out funding the plant, despite its 2021 pledge to stop building new coal plants abroad. the project sponsors say that they expect the coal plant proposal to “become attractive” due to their proximity.
several countries, including bangladesh, ****stan, the philippines and turkey are continuing with plans to develop a backlog of proposed coal plants in the face of counteraction to the fuel, such as local opposition, policy changes, finance moratoriums and other challenges.
over the first six months of 2024, nearly twice as much coal capacity was proposed as was shelved or cancelled, as coal-fired capacity continues to grow globally.
this rebound in proposals is largely due to a resurgence beginning in china in 2022, followed by india in 2024. in fact, as shown in the figure below, almost all (97%) of the new and newly revived proposals in the first half of 2024 are located in china and india.
additionally, of the 1.8gw of newly proposed capacity in the rest of the world, more than 40% is sponsored by chinese companies.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-just-15-countries-account-for-98-of-new-coal-power-development/