pende msipende coal yaja

The Trump Administration Protested When Kenya Halted a Coal-Fired Power Plant

BY JUSTIN WORLAND

JULY 2, 2019

When the Kenyan government had second thoughts about allowing the country’s first coal-fired power plant, the Trump Administration’s representative in the country protested.

U.S. Ambassador Kyle McCarter, a Trump appointee who previously served as a Republican state senator in Illinois, went on Twitter to argue in a string of tweets that coal is environmentally sound, that the plant would boost the country’s economy and that a critical analysis of the plant from a clean energy think tank amounted only to the work of “highly paid protestors.”

“Coal is the cleanest, least costly option,” U.S. Ambassador Kyle McCarter wrote from his official Twitter last week. “Investors will come.”

It’s unclear what lobbying — if any — McCarter has engaged in behind the scenes to promote the coal-fired power plant, but the voice of the U.S. government, which contributed more than a $1 billion in foreign to Kenya in 2017, carries weight within the country, and the White House has said that similar tweets from President Donald Trump are “official statements.”

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Regardless of whether McCarter’s tweets were approved by the State Department ahead of time, they reflect the Trump Administration’s support for growing the coal industry internationally even as scientists warn that the energy source is one of the biggest contributors to climate change and growth in its use could make it all but impossible to keep the planet from warming to catastrophic levels.

These warnings have been left unheeded by Trump, who promised to promote coal throughout his presidential campaign and has unwound environmental policies to that end as president. Most significantly for coal, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has rewritten President Barack Obama’s landmark regulation of the power sector to reduce its impact on coal-fired plants. Still, Trump has been unable to halt the market forces and other pressures that have led hundreds of coal-fired power plants to close.

McCarter Twitter comments began on June 25, after Kenya’s National Environmental Tribunal’s announced that it would halt construction of the Lamu coal-fired power plant, which would have been the first such power plant in the country. The court said the project’s planners had failed to engage the local community and argued that the environmental review conducted ahead of the project did not adequately address several environmental issues including the country’s commitment to fighting climate change. The project could still be revived if a new environmental assessment adequately addresses the concerns laid out in the decision.

“These extraordinary measures are necessary to ensure sufficient access to information by the public on a project that will be the first of its kind in Kenya and the East African region,” the National Environmental Tribunal said in its ruling.

On Twitter, McCarter cited his experience with coal in his home state as evidence that the energy source would work well in Kenya. In his former position, McCarter received contributions from a slew of energy companies including coal interests, according to state disclosure forms. At the time, his nomination drew criticism from Democrats concerned that the Administration had not conducted proper vetting.

A representative U.S. State Department in the region did not provide comment on McCarter’s remarks or U.S. energy policy in the region. The U.S. recently launched a program promoting investment in the region, intended to serve as a geopolitical counterweight to China’s growing influence, and McCarter seemed to suggest that a coal-fired new power plant would advance U.S. investment. Still, on its face, the project raises questions about how it would serve U.S. interests over China’s given that it is financed by China and would be built by Chinese developers.

In a contrast to McCarter’s remarks, the Chinese ambassador to Kenya met with opponents of the coal-fired power plant on June 28 and told them that he supported the will of “the people of Kenya” to “decide whether there would be a coal power plant or not,” according to a statement from activists.

Trump’s campaign promise to restore coal has been met with numerous challenges, particularly in the U.S. Even as the Trump Administration has halted environmental rules, American coal-fired power plants have continued to close as the cost of alternatives — namely natural gas and renewable energy sources like wind and solar — have fallen in cost.

One bright spot for the industry has been the growth in international demand. While coal consumption fellin the U.S. last year, it rose slightly globally and is expected to remain steady for several years, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. “There’s a need for our coal around the world, and they want to burn our coal around the world,” Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray, a prominent Trump donor, told TIME last year. “So it’s been an offset to a great extent to the loss of the domestic coal.”

The Kenyan National Environmental Tribunal’s decision follows a report from the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis that found that the a new coal-fired power plant would increase energy costs in the country and make it difficult for the country to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement. In particular, the report pointed to the country’s rich stock of geothermal, hydropower and other renewables, which could support the country’s growing economy for the next decade.

“Adding renewables, instead of coal, will be less expensive,” says report author David Schlissel, citing a Kenyan government development report. “That will mean that customers of Kenya Power will have more money to spend elsewhere than on their electricity.”

On Twitter, McCarter dismissed the report as the work of “highly paid protestors.”

Huyu ambassador ni maembe tu i hate how Kenyans were so excited because the wanker could speak swahili. What a hopeless nation.

The US exported democracy to Kenya, now they want to do the same to death and poverty (the coal power tariffs to be paid for eons by wanjiku)

coal plants don’t kill people you retarded socialist

the Western civilization is built on coal… not hydro or wind… we need coal power plants

I guess black lung is a name of a rock band out of Virginia.

aaand retard produces facts from 100 years ago. modern coal plants don’t cause black lung

The Cost of Electricity will go UP on completion of the Coal Plant.

Those thinking industrialisation will be brought about by the coal plant, pole, mmemeza ile kitu inaitwa bait, hook na sinker.

Yako ya macho ni ngapi kwa hio mradi. Umeikazania sana

Trump looking for business opportunities for his friends. And stupid Africans believe that coal is clean and will spur growth

They think Europe, Americas and Asia was developed by wind and solar. Even South Africa the most industrialised on the continent is dependent on coal,

Al kebaab will no longer need maps to visit Lamu, watakuwa wanaangalia tu smoke signals.

Kwanza hii mbwa iliwekwa kama ambassador ni nugu sana.