While coal accounts for only a small part of the French energy mix, it has confirmed its plans to cut all export credits for the construction of coal power stations in developing countries. It is unclear when the new policy will come into effect.
While its export credit agency Coface which has guaranteed all those projects was the fifth largest subsidiser of coal energy exports from the OECD from 2007-13, the Prime Minister has said French public funds could no longer be used by coal power stations in developing countries unless they had carbon capture and storage systems.
The policy change has a major hitch though, in that only two large CCS plants are so far operational – both in Norway – and just 13 exist in the world, despite the European Commission expecting 12 of them to be working in Europe by now.
Most of these are associated with enhanced oil recovery, whereby liquefied carbon is pumped into depleted oil and gas fields to extract the last remaining fossil fuels, before the fields are capped.
The French government had already partly committed to ending these subsidies in 2013 when President Francois Hollande promised that the French Development Agency would no longer support coal-fired power stations in developing countries.
The promise was formalised in the framework law on international development and solidarity in July last year which specifies that the French Development Bank "does not finance coal-fired power stations, except those which include an operational carbon dioxide capture and storage system".
Friends of the Earth campaign leader Lucie Pinson believes this is an important specification.
"Coface has recently provided guarantees for the Medupi power stations in South Africa, which should become operational in June 2015. This station also benefited from the support of the World Bank on the grounds that it would be equipped with a CCS system," she said.
Yet the system is far from ready and the power station is expected to emit 29 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. France emitted 35.1 million tons of carbon dioxide from coal in 2011; a small portion of the 328.3 million tons released by burning fossil fuels in the country each year.
However, Friends of the Earth President Florent Compain urged the government to publicly denounce all support for fossil fuels well in advance of it hosting the UN’s COP21 climate conference in December.
The French Minister for Ecology Segolene Royal and the Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced the move while laying out their environmental roadmap for 2015 ahead of the Paris Climate Conference.
"France will do everything it can to reach an agreement at the COP 21, which will be held in Paris in December 2015. We will be adapting our export aid in order to set a good example," Valls said.
A European Commission report last month said its countries should be given binding targets for installing technology to capture and store carbon emissions by 2030.
The UN’s climate science panel said such technology could have to account for over a fifth of the world’s carbon cuts by 2050 and the new EU paper said there was a “genuine and urgent” need for it in Europe.
“An EU roadmap for CCS with binding targets for 2030 sends a clear signal of intent to members of the UNFCCC process that the EU’s carbon dioxide ambitions will be realised, thus maintaining a leading position for the EU in the climate debate,” the guideline report stated.
