It was supposed to be a big win for climate activists: another of the world’s most powerful mining companies had caved to investor demands that it stop digging up coal.
Instead, Anglo American Plc’s exit from coal has become a case study for unintended consequences, transforming mines that were scheduled for eventual closure into the engine room for a growth-hungry coal business.
And while it’s a particularly stark example, it’s not the only one.
When rival BHP Group was struggling to sell an Australian colliery this year, the company surprised investors by applying to extend mining at the site by another two decades — an apparent attempt to sweeten its appeal to potential buyers.
Now, after years of lobbying blue-chip companies to stop mining the most-polluting fuel, there’s a growing unease among climate activists and some investors that the policy many of them championed could lead to more coal being produced for longer.
Senior mining executives say the message from their shareholders is evolving to acknowledge that risk, and they’re no longer pushing as hard for blanket withdrawals.
BHP may end up holding on to the Australian mine it was battling to sell, Bloomberg reported last week.
Earlier this year, Glencore Plc sounded out a major climate investor group before announcing it would increase its ownership of a big Colombian coal mine, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Everyone in the industry is starting to be more sophisticated, more nuanced, and more careful on the way they think these issues through,” said Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions at Legal & General Group Plc.
Who should own the world’s coal mines is a question that resources giants and their investors may be grappling with for years to come.
At the global climate talks in Glasgow, world leaders have fallen short on the U.K. host’s ambition to “consign coal to history.”
It continues to dominate the world’s electricity mix, and energy shortages in Europe and China this year have only reinforced the message that the world remains deeply dependent on coal.
Read rest at Bloomberg
Maybe its time for the Devest in Fossil Fuel idiots to suffer the Backlash of their own Ignorance
I see the potential for the same thing to happen to major oil co’s. Activists have got onto boards and are preventing exploration and increases in production. This won’t have a happy ending for many people in the coming northern hemisphere winter which is forecast to be a cold one.
Combining this with the “coal-is-bad” idea, life is going to be a lot less comfortable. If this winter is as cold as predicted, I predict many people are going to die because of climate change dogma.
From the article, “stop mining the most-polluting fuel.” Coal is only a pollutant if the exhaust isn’t cleaned of the particulate matter and sulfur. It is true that coal has the highest carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced, but CO2 is not a pollutant.