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Political Ecology of the New Geographies of Coal: The Coal Chain between Colombia and Turkey The Authors Andrea Full time professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics of the Magdalena University in Santa Marta, Colombia. Cardoso Doctor in Environmental Science and Technology (area of ecological economics) and Master in Environmental Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Andrea held a European Community “Erasmus Mundus” scholarship from 2006 to 2008, thanks to which she obtained a Masters in Water and Coastal Management from the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom, and the University of Cádiz, Spain. Since 2005, she has worked as a researcher and professor in several Colombian universities. Her current research is focused on ecological economics and the political ecology of the global coal chain. 5 Ethemcan Postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology Turhan (KTH) Environmental Humanities Lab in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his B.Sc. in Environmental Engineering from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in political ecology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). He recently co-edited a special issue of Energy Research and Social Science on energy infrastructures and national developmentalism. He is broadly interested in climate justice and energy democracy. Series Towards a Post Coal Mining Colombia: Contributions for a Socio-Environmentally Just Transition Political Ecology of the New Geographies of Coal: The Coal Chain between Colombia and Turkey Summary of the coal generate environmental pollution, public health loss, relocation impacts throughout the zone. and displacement of local communities, With the Paris Agreement at COP21, a pollution, access to natural resources, and environmental degradation (diversion of progressive process of decarbonization of sacrifices made in favor of the extraction The situation in these areas is an rivers and coastal ecosystems affected), the global energy mix has been initiated, and consumption of resources, as a example of how the energy strategies of and climate change. These injustices are with the aim of mitigating changes in result of the strongly pro-coal policies of Colombia and Turkey contribute to the also caused by democratic deficits in both the global climate regime. This has had Colombia and Turkey. emergence of ecological distribution countries, which allows the companies to repercussions in the closure of thermal conflicts: that is, struggles associated with evade their responsibilities. power plants and an apparent reduction in Colombia is the fourth biggest net the unequal distribution of the costs of coal consumption in the US, the UK and exporter of coal globally, and almost pollution and access to resources, in which Despite the overlap of environmental the European Union. This decline in coal in 8% of its GDP is based on mining and local communities bear the most serious damage at the bi-local, bi-national and the Global North has led to the emergence oil exploitation. Although only a small social and environmental costs. In the global scales, to date there is no network of new energy geographies, characterized proportion of the coal mined is used case of La Guajira, these are indigenous that connects the injustices related to not by the extractive relationship internally (more than 90% is exported), and Afro-Colombian communities, while coal in the two countries. This presents between North and South, but by internal recent governments have promoted it as at the other end of the coal chain, in an opportunity to connect the claims and extraction and consumption in countries a “motor for development”. On the other Çatalağzı, the combustion of coal affects actions of the local anti-coal movements at such as China and India, as well as by the hand, Turkey is the eighth largest importer the communities in the areas surrounding each end of the chain, which in turn fosters emerging commercial relationships in the of coal and is third in the world in terms of the CFPPs. The ecological distribution an emerging international coalition for geopolitical and economic interests among capacity to generate power based on new conflicts along the coal chain between environmental justice. I the Global South. This includes countries CFPPs. Turkey used to depend mainly Colombia and Turkey are related to air II such as India, South Africa, Colombia and on Russia to satisfy its coal demand, but Turkey, where the coal trade has increased due to recent geopolitical tensions, it has in recent years. favored the use of national lignite and coal, and at the same time encouraged the This study identifies and explores a new import of coal with a high energetic value geography of coal in the emerging South- (as is the case of Colombian coal), to ensure South relationship, that of coal extracted its supply. The importance of Colombian in Colombia and coal consumed in coal- coal in Turkey is such that, by 2016, 42% fired power plants (CFPPs) in Turkey. of the country’s coal imports came from Through the analysis of the coal chain Colombia. A clear example of the CFPPs between the two countries, it is evident that burn Colombian coal in Turkey is the how the exploitation and consumption of Zonguldak Thermoelectric Power Plant of coal for the production of electric energy the energy business Eren Holding (ZETES, are deeply interconnected by interactions with its initials in Turkish) in Çatalağzı. in different layers (commercial, physical Eren, among other Turkish companies, and socio-environmental) and scales has privileged the import of Colombian (local, national and global). The political coal mined by the company Cerrejón in ecology approach allows us to address the La Guajira peninsula. Cerrejón, for its trading conditions between the two part, is the largest coal mine in Colombia countries, as well as the asymmetries and (69,000 hectares), and its open-pit injustices in the distribution of the costs of operation and the railway transportation Contents List of figures 1. Introduction 1 Figure 1: The coal mining area in the Colombia Caribbean region (La Guajira and Cesar) and CFPPs projects in Zonguldak province, Turkey 4 2. The Political Ecology of the New Geographies of Coal 5 3. New geographies of coal: Emerging South-South links 9 Figure 2: The three layers of the coal chain between Colombia and Turkey 10 4. Scavenging the Earth: Export-oriented coal extraction in Colombia 15 Figure 3: Colombia and Turkey electricity mix and power capacity 15 4.1. The boom of Colombian coal exports and its royalties 16 Figure 4: Changing patterns of coal trade between Colombia and Turkey 17 4.2. The coal trade between La Guajira and Turkey 18 Figure 5: Colombian coal exports to Turkey by coal mining companies 4.3. Ecological distribution conflicts and coal resistance in La Guajira 19 (2004) 18 5. Dark faultlines: Turkey and its coal rush in turbulent times 23 List of tables 5.1. The national coal market in Turkey 23 5.2. New geopolitics and the coal rush in Turkey 24 Table 1: Eren Holding: decision-making criteria for importing coal from Colombia 12 5.3. The case of Çatalağzı, Zonguldak (NW Turkey) 26 6. Discussion 33 List of boxes 7. Conclusión 36 Box 1: Turkish anti-coal movements campaign 26 8. List of references 37 Box 2: Eren ZETES 2 and its process 30 Political Ecology of the New Geographies of Coal: The Coal Chain between Colombia and Turkey 1. Introduction The COP21 Paris Agreement clearly et al., 2011; Richards & Boom, 2015). blew the final whistle on the dominance of In addition, extraction, transportation coal in the global energy mix (Wong, De- and processing generate even more CO2 Jager & Van-Breevoort, 2016). Calls for emissions (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and rapid decarbonization to avoid dangerous FoE, 2015). In 2013, coal accounted interference with climate systems foster for 46% of global CO2 emissions, even coal phase-out in the Global North. The though coal represented 29% of the US has plans to retire coal-fired power total global energy supply (IEA, 2015c). plants (CFPPs) while UK policy aims to McGlade and Ekins (2015) have warned phase out CFPPs within the next 10-15 that the world can burn only around 12% years (Greenpeace, 2015; IEEFA, 2015). of current global coal reserves if it wishes Moreover, in the EU, coal consumption has to meet the target temperature of a 2°C been falling since 2012, and this has been increase. That means that more than linked to the increase in the renewables 88% of known coal reserves must stay sector (Greenpeace, 2015). With the in the ground, even in the Global South. decrease of coal in China (IEA, 2015a), energy geographies are bound to change Coal extraction and consumption for drastically, and the future of coal will be energy production are deeply interwoven 1 decided in the Global South (AbdelGawad through socio-environmental interactions et al., 2015). This includes countries across a variety of scales and new like India, South Africa, Colombia, and geographies (Zimmerer, 2011). We identify Turkey, where the coal trade has increased a new geography of coal in the emerging in recent years (IEA, 2015c). A substantial South-South relationship between coal change in the energy sector was produced mined in Colombia and consumed in from 2014 to 2015 due to the rapid CFPPs in Turkey. A larger coal chain drop in world oil prices, which brought connects Indonesia to India and China, consequences for natural gas and coal and a slightly smaller one South Africa to prices (IEA, 2015b). In the Global South, India. The Colombia-Turkey coal chain is lower coal prices are likely to act as a not the only interesting South-South coal form of economic stimulus, using a higher chain, but it is an important one.