$200bn for russia and a green light for coal. Reshaping global government decision-making through climate disinformation

$200bn for russia and a green light for coal. Reshaping global government decision-making through climate disinformation (INVESTIGATION)

Liubov Velychko

The project implementation is supported by Bertha Foundation.

To slow down global warming, authorities and representatives of the energy sector share ideas at major public events such as conferences and summits. MIND.ua analysed how disinformation with false solutions to the climate crisis is disseminated and convinces the governments of the United States, Australia, Ukraine, India, and russia to make decisions that are fatal to our planet and benefit its biggest polluters – oil, gas, and coal companies.

russia’s first win

One sixth of russia’s GDP comes from the oil and gas sector. And since the world has predicted a gradual phase-out of oil and gas over the next few decades due to global warming, the country needed a plan B to keep its economy going.

So the russian government relied on the development of another type of energy – nuclear.

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The giant state-run corporation rosatom has already built 33 nuclear power plants in ten countries.

It also provides maintenance services for nuclear power stations: building infrastructure, training personnel, carrying out maintenance and repairs, and supplying spare parts and equipment.

And the lion’s share of these services is provided abroad – in 12 countries (including China, India, Turkey, Hungary, etc.).

And all this yields huge incomes. The total value of the company’s foreign order portfolio [I1] in 2023 was about $200 billion, according to Rosatom. 

It is the foreign market that can become a source of new huge revenues.

But how can we convince world leaders that NPPs are worth investing in just as much as solar and wind power plants?

Having analyzed rosatom’s activities abroad since russia ratified the Paris Agreement in 2018, we have traced how the corporation has spread disinformation about “clean nuclear energy” – which has become the background for the rapid expansion of this idea worldwide.

Environmental organizations urge world governments to phase out nuclear power as soon as possible. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) argues that the idea that nuclear power can play a key role in achieving the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement on zero emissions is a false narrative. At the same time, nuclear power is the most expensive source of electricity generation as of 2023.

“Building new nuclear capacity is too slow, too expensive, and too risky to matter,” explains Dean Cooper, WWF’s Global Energy Lead. “It also diverts efforts away from real solutions that are more affordable and faster. Nuclear power cannot and should not be seen as part of an urgently needed energy transition. Rather, governments should prioritise investments in energy efficiency and the deployment of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar to decarbonise the grid. These are proven solutions that are by far the cheapest and most sustainable forms of energy available today.”

In September 2021, the russian government put nuclear power plants on the list of “green projects” – eligible for funding to meet international climate goals. A month later, the idea began to spread internationally.

The largest–and the perfect–platform for this was the annual international Conference of Parties (COP), where world leaders decide how to tackle climate change. The COP 2015 was memorable because it resulted in the Paris Agreement on the global response to the climate crisis. Subsequent conferences are devoted to discussing the rules for its implementation.

In 2021, the COP was hosted in Glasgow, UK. rosatom understands that meetings of this level are an opportunity to directly appeal to the global community. That’s when the corporation’s representatives began to voice false arguments that the climate goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement cannot be achieved without nuclear power.

Among the arguments put forward in favour of nuclear power was that CO2 emissions from NPPs are supposedly lower than those from wind farms. In fact, studies show that nuclear power produces 6 times more carbon than wind power and 2-3 times more than various solar power technologies.

It was also at this time that the Conference of the Parties saw the first-ever appearance of a pavilion with the hashtag #Atoms4Climate. This initiative was taken into the fold by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where Mikhail Chudakov, a citizen of the russian federation, serves as Deputy Director General.

This was another victory for russia. Polina Lion, Director of rosatom’s Sustainable Development Department, said that the World Nuclear Association and the IAEA had repeatedly applied for the construction of such a pavilion, but the organisers would not confirm it: “This year, the application was approved, and this is our common serious achievement – a sign that the organisers of the global climate conference have shifted their attitude to the place of the atom in decarbonising the economy.”

The conference, supported by rosatom, featured a number of sessions focused on the role of nuclear power in the transition to a low-carbon economic system. To reinforce the words with pictures, rosatom organised virtual online tours of the Leningrad and Beloyarsk atomic power stations for the attendees. Each time, they emphasised that nuclear energy is a safe and reliable way to save the planet from the climate crisis.

Alexey Likhachev, CEO of Rosatom, delivered a report entitled “Nuclear Power and Renewable Energy for a Carbon Neutral Future”. In his speech, he expressed the hope that “Brussels will soon decide in favour of including atomic energy in the European taxonomy”.

That was because no one was allocating “climate” money for nuclear power plants at that time.

Just nine months later, the European Commission listened to Likhachev’s suggestion and included nuclear generation in the sustainable funding taxonomy. Thus, the European Union has recognised that “some” nuclear activities contribute to climate change mitigation and will recognise new high-tech nuclear power plant construction projects by 2045 and will recognise the retrofit of existing nuclear facilities to extend their lifespan by 2040.

Following the COP26 in Glasgow, Alexey Likhachev commented: “For the first time, most parties agreed that nuclear power should be part of a carbon-free global balance.” In his words, this trend was even more pronounced at the next Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

At COP27, Rosatom began to actively work with representatives of the Middle East and Africa, as well as with its strategic partners from the BRICS (Brazil, russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates).

It was with delegates from these countries that rosatom representatives held a series of discussions during the conference on the role of nuclear technology in overcoming the climate crisis. Meanwhile, they offered their services in the construction of A-plants.

In addition, the international Energy Transition Commission, involving the government of Panama and the BRICS countries, was launched to implement youth projects in the energy sector. At the presentation of the so-called “energy forecast” by this commission, some data by “young scientists” was cited that “more than 70% of young respondents from developing countries believe that the use of nuclear energy is the key to solving the climate change problem”.

In these public discussions, Viacheslav Fetisov, Deputy Chairman of rosatom’s Public Council, admitted that for several years he has been promoting the message that nuclear energy should be included in the Seventh Sustainable Development Goal – as “affordable and clean energy”. “The use of nuclear energy gives humanity the opportunity to avoid an energy crisis. Nuclear energy is carbon-free and sustainable,” he said.

Kirill Komarov, Deputy Director General of rosatom, emphasised that at the COP27 the view that  “nuclear energy plays an important role in achieving a carbon-free energy future for humanity has become less and less controversial. Nuclear is becoming a full member of the climate dialogue”.

Less than two months after the conference, India enshrined in its national strategy a threefold increase in nuclear capacity by 2032. Explaining this decision, India’s Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadava stressed that the work of NPPs prevents the increase in CO2 emissions.

And since rosatom is currently engaged in the construction of eight nuclear plants in India worth tens of billions of dollars, there is no doubt that the russian corporation is going to be involved in upcoming projects.

Financial flows from everywhere

But to get orders from all over the world, the russians have announced an even more ambitious goal. During the EnrgeSpace international energy forum in moscow, Ruslan Edelgeriyev, the russian President’s adviser on climate change, proposed to work out with several countries (with the participation of rosatom) a mechanism for obtaining funding for the execution of NPP construction projects “that will solve the issue of energy supply and are low-emission in terms of greenhouse gas emissions”.

He said that funds from the World Bank and the UN Climate Funds could well be used to invest in “green” nuclear energy projects, “that have proven to be safe and environmentally friendly” and “fit into the global strategy to reduce carbon emissions”.

In doing so, the official underlined that it is not rosatom and russia that should initiate access to climate funding, but the customer countries themselves.

“We’ll see, in two or three COPs we can get to this funding mechanism, to this climate money,” Edelgeriyev concluded.

The idea was supported by rosatom. According to Kirill Komarov, First Deputy Director General and Director for Development and International Business at rosatom, the path to including nuclear energy in the global green taxonomy was challenging and long, and therefore turning financial institutions towards peaceful atom projects will also require great effort.

At the end of the same year, another 123 companies from 140 countries had issued a joint statement of intent to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. The signatories declared their intention to work with governments to accelerate the deployment of new nuclear stations. They also called on all governments, development banks and the World Bank to support nuclear projects through green finance.

Commenting on this statement, Mr. Komarov emphasised: “We are aware of the urgent need to address climate change, and nuclear power is a proven, fast and sustainable solution to achieve decarbonisation goals.” 

The nuclear industry was also well prepared for the UN Climate Conference in 2023. On the eve of COP28, the IAEA held an international conference in Austria with the eloquent title “Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power: Nuclear for Carbon Neutrality”. The thesis that a threefold increase in nuclear generation is needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement was repeated.

Representatives of rosatom spoke about the importance of nuclear power development for the climate at six discussion panels. The corporation’s Deputy Director General Ilya Rebrov presented a report on green project funding and its role in supporting the global energy transition. rosatom also presented a wide range of communication tools used to debunk myths and stereotypes about nuclear energy, considering cultural, political and social aspects.

“The atomic community has fully engaged in discussions on the climate agenda and specific practical steps that the atomic industry can and should take to counter climate change,” said Polina Lion, Chief Sustainability Officer at State Atomic Energy Corporation rosatom. “I would like to note the IAEA’s systematic efforts to build climate competence among the atomic community and its consistent work to develop the Atoms4NetZero initiative, announced by the Agency at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022. It is particularly important that this discussion now involves not only atomists but also representatives of adjacent sectors, including renewable energy and financial institutions.”

Further events developed very rapidly.

In December 2023, the Conference of the Parties for the first time named nuclear power a zero- and low-emission technology. At COP28, 20 countries – including the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Canada – joined the declaration to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050. The document pointed out that nuclear energy plays an important role in decarbonisation.

And just 10 days after the conference, the US Treasury Department allowed energy companies to receive billion-dollar tax breaks for producing electricity from nuclear power with zero CO2 emissions.

insert with photo: Three years after the “green taxonomy” was introduced for nuclear energy in russia, the idea of “clean atom” was echoed on the other side of the Atlantic by Dan Eggers, Executive Vice President and CFO of Constellation, a US company that operates 14 nuclear plants: “Elected officials on both sides of the aisle, climate and sustainability advocates and the general public are increasingly recognising the value of nuclear energy (…)for its positive environmental impact as a clean energy resource.”

After the COP28, 133 country leaders officially put nuclear energy on a par with renewables and pledged to develop these types of energy.

In March 2024, amid Greenpeace protests, a summit meeting of already 30 countries that support nuclear energy was held in Brussels. During the event, a number of countries, including France, the US and China, announced their intention to promote the rapid expansion of the nuclear station network and facilitate the financing of NPS construction.

The document says that without nuclear-generated electricity, it would be impossible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The summit participants called not only for the construction of new NPPs but also for the extension of the service life of existing ones.

Politicians called on international financial institutions, including the World Bank, to support nuclear power more actively, noting that development banks prefer to finance alternative energy projects.

Only two months later, the European Investment Bank expressed its readiness to finance nuclear energy projects.

In April 2024, the Ukrainian parliament began considering a bill on the construction of the third and fourth units of the Khmelnytsky NPP. A number of environmental organisations in Ukraine opposed it, pointing to safety concerns and the risk of wartime construction.

India has set a goal to increase its nuclear power capacity 13-fold by 2047. In April 2024, the government officially presented the “energy transition report”[I2] , detailing the country’s energy transition strategy. The paper states that access to clean and affordable electricity, including from nuclear and renewable energy, is crucial to achieving zero emissions.

“Green light” for coal

According to the International Energy Agency, coal is the largest source of CO2 emissions. It is therefore reasonable that in 2023, for the first time in the history of the Conference of the Parties, 200 countries agreed to start reducing their consumption of coal and other fossil fuels. This intention was enshrined in a document called the First Global Stocktake, which serves as a reference point for implementing relevant policies at the national level in each country.

This international declaration is at odds with the government policies of India and Australia, the world’s leading coal producers. Just a few months before this event, major coal conferences in India discussed the importance of increasing coal production by 2030, not reducing it. The Ministry of Coal was proudly opening new mines even after COP28. The Australian government was doing the same, extending the life of old mines with government subsidies and giving the green light to new mining projects.

Has the policy of these governments changed since the announced declaration?

We have analysed the agendas of several dozen coal-related conferences in India and Australia in 2024. And we have seen that events that gather thousands of people spread the same ideas even at the level of topics for discussion. By summarising the content of these topics, they seem to be trying to prove that, despite the government’s climate goals, coal mining can and should continue.

In 2024, the cornerstone topic for discussion at the largest conferences for the coal industry is finding a solution – how to increase production while fitting in with the global trend of reducing emissions.

India’s main state-owned coal monopoly, Coal India Limited, organised a major conference with the eloquent title “Underground Coal Mining – Way Forward for Sustainable Energy Security”. The event was attended by the Secretary, Ministry of Coal, Shri Amrit Lal Meena, who stressed that more private sector companies should be involved in coal mining.

Pramod Agrawal , CMD of Coal India Limited, said that underground coal mining has “limited environmental impact”.

The aim of the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) is to help the coal sector achieve its 2030 and 2050 decarbonisation targets. The organisers suggest to discuss with representatives of the mining industry “how mining supports a sustainable future”. Accordingly, the issue of reducing coal production is not raised here.

And at the announced India Coal Outlook Conference in September 2024, coal market participants will discuss whether coal is really an obstacle to the energy transition. To find new opportunities for the industry, they will analyse government policies on coal consumption and discuss India’s international coal commitments.

A misleading illusion of “environmental friendliness” is created by the numerous discussions about how miners use solar and wind energy in their coal mining operations. For example, at the IMARC conference, participants promote the opinion that “changing the way a mine operates is enough to reduce carbon emissions”. The miners want to reduce emissions at their enterprises by using renewable energy, switching to electric batteries or other low-carbon alternatives for their equipment fleets.

In reality, however, it is impossible to achieve zero emissions in this way. After all, carbon will still be released into the atmosphere when coal is burned, no matter how the coal is mined.

At the Energy and Mines International Summit, the main discussion topic was also strategies for achieving decarbonisation goals in the mining. As with all such events, Australian government officials responsible for the energy sector were invited to attend. Along with government representatives, the coal industry is discussing how to “whitewash” its image as a polluter of the planet and start positioning itself as a “green goods supplier”.

A month later, at the Future of Mining Perth conference, a thousand participants will analyse climate regulations and try to find a way to reconcile the incompatible.  The discussion will involve officials from the Western Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy, the Office of Critical Minerals, and the Minerals Council of Australia, an industry association.

 “It is important to understand how environmentally friendly practices and social responsibility initiatives can ensure profitable mining operations while protecting the environment and local communities,” the conference organisers say in their programme. – “Respected mining leaders will discuss the complex regulatory environment surrounding mining, identifying potential challenges and opportunities for creating a legal framework that balances support for development with the promotion of sustainable practices”

Anyone can present their arguments to government officials about the “environmental friendliness” of coal during coal conferences. To do this, you need to pay a fee to the conference organisers for participation in the session. For example, a thirty-minute presentation or taking part in a panel discussion at the Future of Mining costs $26,800. And mining companies make use of this.

Organisers of all these events ignore the statements made during COP28 regarding the ban on investments in fossil fuels – there is not a word about it in their programmes and speeches. On the contrary, during the Australian Critical Minerals Conference, representatives of the Western Australian Government’s Department of Mines and Petroleum are invited to discuss “what government support is needed to accelerate growth in the critical minerals sector” and how to simplify bureaucratic processes for the development of new mine projects.

Along the way, the discussion uses the inherently misleading phrase “green mining” and “environmentally sustainable mining methods”.

A costly and inefficient affair

The United Nations has calculated that current global government policies have been doing disastrously little to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. To ensure that the planet does not heat up by more than 1.5C by the end of the century, annual global CO2 emissions must be reduced by 25 gigatons by 2030, or 42% compared to 2022 levels.

Is this goal feasible and how can it be achieved? Since the signing of the Paris Agreement, the idea of large-scale investments in a new type of carbon reduction–CO2 capture and storage technologies–has been increasingly spreading around the world.  It involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes, such as steel and cement production, or from the combustion of fossil fuels in electricity generation. This carbon is then transported from the place where it was produced, either by ship or pipeline, and stored deep underground in geological formations.

During COP28, several oil-producing countries, including the UAE, which hosted the summit, advocated for an increased role for carbon capture in the agreement. The so-called “UAE Consensus” included the wording that “accelerating towards zero and low emission energy and carbon capture technologies” would simplify the path towards a net-zero future.

But is this really the case?

Critics say the technology remains expensive and unproven at scale, and oil and gas companies are pushing it to justify continued drilling. It is no surprise, then, that top oil and gas corporations sponsor major conferences for scientists and policymakers on the development of carbon capture and storage. This trend has been observed by analysing all major thematic conferences in the US in 2024.

For instance, the US conference CCUS 2024 explains that carbon capture and storage technology “helps maximise production from currently stranded oil reserves, thus reducing the environmental footprint relative to field development”.

One of the world’s largest carbon capture projects is located in Australia, at a liquefied natural gas plant. The project’s majority stake is shared by three oil and gas corporations: Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell.  The COP28 report says that this project has also faced problems, including high costs and low capture rates.

Summing up the five years of the system’s operation, Piers Verstegen, Conservation Council of WA Executive Director, commented that, according to open data, the facility captured only half of what the company originally promised. According to his estimates, the CCS project will have reduced the total pollution from the plant by less than 2%.

“The Chevron case demonstrates that CCS is not a viable solution to mitigating carbon pollution from oil and gas projects on its own, and should not be used as a means to allow continued expansion of these industries here in Western Australia or anywhere else in the world,” Verstegen said.

Yet such outcomes do not prevent major conferences on carbon capture and removal technologies from emphasising how significant their impact on the climate can be.

Exxon Mobile has been deeply involved in the development and global deployment of carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies and promotes the idea that these technologies are “critical to help meet society’s lower-emission goals.”  And there are many similar cases.

At the North America CCUS & Hydrogen Decarbonisation Summit, the idea that CCS “is the only current option to substantially decarbonise emissions intensive sector” was promoted.

And at the CCUS 2024 conference, Charles McConnell, Executive Director, Centre for Carbon Management in Energy, said that “CCUS is clearly an important part of the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially for industries that are difficult to decarbonise”. According to him, the technologies developed in the upstream oil and gas industry are complementary to those needed in the CCUS industry and in many cases are completely complementary. “It is imperative that we as an industry take a leadership role in the development of this technology,” he concluded.

Proponents of carbon capture admit that CCUS still faces opposition from politicians and “uncertain public acceptance”. Though, the technology is gaining support, including legislatively. In 2024, government officials are discussing financial incentives to accelerate investment in carbon removal projects and the development of CCUS technologies to scale the industry.

But even now, despite its dubious efficiency and high cost, thanks to new government initiatives, CCUS can be profitable for companies that implement this technology. From 2015 to 2024, 13 bills were passed in the US to improve the investment attractiveness of carbon capture and storage technologies.

The US Congress has twice extended and significantly increased tax credits for CO2 use and storage: in 2018 and 2023. And in 2021, lawmakers allowed such projects to participate in the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee programme. This means that, to the delight of oil and gas corporations, the government can invest heavily in the construction and early operation of CCUS projects.

Liubov Velychko is the Ukraine Correspondent of Mahabahu and an Investigative Journalist.

Mahabahu.com is an Online Magazine with collection of premium Assamese and English articles and posts with cultural base and modern thinking.  You can send your articles to editor@mahabahu.com / editor@mahabahoo.com (For Assamese article, Unicode font is necessary) Images from different sources.