Sri Lanka to back ‘Consign Coal to History’ at COP26

The Cabinet this week cleared the path for Sri Lanka to officially support the global initiative ‘Consign Coal to History’ at the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held from October 31 to November 12 in 
Glasgow, Scotland.

Power Minister Gamini Lokuge on Monday sought approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to enter into the accord, which is expected to be proposed by the United Kingdom (UK) at the upcoming Conference to dedicate to a cleaner energy agenda joining with the United Nations and some member countries.

“The signatories to the accord will be responsible and bounded for minimising environment pollution and/or immediately stopping the issuance of new licenses for coal power electricity generation projects to which there is no methodology for prevention of the impact caused to the environment and to stop new project constructions pertaining to electricity generation with coal power plants by the end of the year,” the Government Information Department stated.

The upcoming UN Climate Summit COP26 led by its Chair United Kingdom (UK) aims to keep the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach with this initiative. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa recently announced Sri Lanka’s plans to cease building new coal-fired power plants and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, while setting a target to generate 70 percent of all the country’s energy requirements from renewable sources by 2030.
Sri Lanka also recently became a founding member of the UN’s ‘No New Coal Power Compact’ along with Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Montenegro, and the UK.

The expectation of the upcoming conference would be to review on the implementation of the convention on climate change, Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accord and to enter into decisions to further enhance and implement those agreements.