Phasing out a third of coal power plants in Asia can reduce around 1 billion tonnes of CO2 each year

Phasing out about a third of pollutive coal power plants in over a dozen Asian countries through a novel form of carbon credits can reduce emissions by around one billion tonnes annually, an initiative led by Singapore’s central bank has found. This is equivalent to roughly a third of the European Union’s emissions in 2024. The figure was highlighted by Singapore’s Ambassador for Climate Action Ravi Menon during the opening of the Singapore Pavilion on Nov 10, the first day of the UN climate change conference COP30 taking place in Brazil.

Transition credits are a new class of carbon credits that Singapore is piloting as a solution to tackling one of the region’s biggest climate problems: its young fleet of coal plants. Mr Menon had cited such credits as being among a slew of measures the Republic is rolling out for progress to be made on climate action.

The full report, which looked at Asian countries and jurisdictions including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan, will be published on Nov 12. The one billion tonnes of emission reductions from closing a third of the region’s coal plants early were from coal-fired power plants eligible for “high-quality” transition credit projects, said Traction. There are about 2,000 coal plants in Asia, with a majority of them in China. Such projects must meet a few criteria. For example, to demonstrate the permanence of the emissions reduced, the power plant owner must commit to not building new coal plants, where emissions can persist.

Source: ENN