Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the National Mining Association (NMA), said cost, accessibility and security are inarguable factors favoring a prominent role for coal in energy policies designed to grow both mature economies as well as rapidly expanding ones in China and India. Energy use in developing countries is expected to soar by over 90% over the next two decades.

"Coal is not going away, the need for coal is not going away, and the will to use it among those who have coal is not going away," said Gerard.

As a consequence, Gerard called on EU policymakers to adopt a realistic view of coal utilization that integrates environmental aspirations with an appreciation for economic and security considerations. Fundamental to a more realistic view toward coal, said Gerard, will be a greater reliance on technological advances and research to reconcile the demands for growth with a clean environment.

"Carbon sequestration research, clean coal technologies and hydrogen research acknowledge the indisputable fact that fossil fuels like coal will continue for the foreseeable future to be the most reliable and lowest-cost energy resources," said Gerard.

He endorsed the US climate policy, insisting the US is not committed to the status quo but to carbon reductions achieved through voluntary initiatives and technological innovation. This approach, said Gerard, "springs from the basic conviction that without economic growth environmental progress will falter."

"Only by adopting policies conducive to economic growth will we summon the political will and provide the necessary investment for new technologies that are capable of controlling carbon emissions," Gerard told conference participants.

A reliance on market forces to reduce carbon emissions can assure Europeans of satisfactory economic and environmental progress, he said. The alternative is likely to be an unacceptable reduction in living standards and opportunities.

"Economic stagnation is a high price to pay for a lack of innovation and imagination - all the more so because it's unnecessary," he concluded.