Mining group: Climate-change accord ignores clean-coal techology initiatives

Following the recent signing of the Paris climate-change agreement, National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn slammed the Obama administration’s omission of clean-coal technology from the solutions outlined in the agreement.

“What is missing from the administration’s celebratory rhetoric surrounding the Paris agreement is that its own plan for addressing global warming – aside from being stopped by the Supreme Court for its questionable legality – bears a still more fundamental flaw,” Quinn said.“It ignores the fact that reaching the U.N.’s temperature-reduction goal will not be achieved by regulations designed to drive U.S. coal out of the market. That goal can only be achieved by aggressively supporting the testing and deployment of high-efficiency, low-emissions technologies for use globally.”

The agreement focuses on emissions reductions through wind and solar energy efforts, among other initiatives, but Quinn said its current directives are likely to elicit higher electricity prices for consumers.

“By refusing to acknowledge the technology solution, the administration has inexplicably turned its back on the most responsible pathway for addressing the issue it claims is urgent – as well as on the hundreds of millions of the world’s poor who lack or will lose affordable electricity,” Quinn said.