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The EU should de-politicise coal by providing a solution to the related socioeconomic issues, such as the difficulties of transition in coal mining regions. T o do so, the EU should broaden the scope and change the functioning of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, to make it into a flagship EU initiative that will support European coal miners who will inevitably be affected by EU decarbonisation. By devoting 0.1 percent of its post-2020 budget to this item, the EU could facilitate the elimination of a major stumbling block on its decarbonisation pathway.

Box 1: A back-of-the-envelope calculation of the EGCF budget requirements to support the coal phase-out Europeans employed in coal mining = 216,000 (0.07 percent of total) Assuming a 50 percent phase-out between 2020-27 = 108,000 jobs to be phased out (Fair to assume that part of the remaining 50 percent will naturally retire over the period) 108,000 / 7 years = 15,430 jobs to be phased out yearly between 2020-2027 Assuming financial support of €10,000 per worker = €154 million per year Total financial requirement for the coal-item of the EGCF between 2020-27 = €1 billion

A team headed by Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson outlined plans for 139 nations to transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by the year 2050.

The shift would also allow the countries to avoid the 3 percent they now spend in their Gross Domestic Products to address the costs of air pollution — mainly in the form of higher health care spending.

The plan maps each country and the energy sources it would rely on to reach the 100 percent renewable goal. Water-bound and geologically active Iceland would get 28 percent of its power from hydroelectric sources and nearly 23 percent from geothermal. Parched and wide-open Australia would get nearly 45 percent of its power from wind farms. Poland would get nearly two-thirds of its power from the wind.

President Jimmy Carter signed a bill calling for 10,000 megawatts of OTEC capacity to be up and running by 1999. Then oil prices stabilized, administrations changed, and other than a few demonstration projects, nothing happened.

“When people actually have to build stuff that’s got to survive in the ocean and be insured, costs double. Insurance premiums triple,” he said. “And all of a sudden, what looked good when you announced it, you can’t actually get finance to build.”

Binger added that many small island nations still haven’t recovered from the debt they incurred during the oil crisis that began in 1979.

Ecologically sustainable energy technologies comprise renewable energy supply together with improved efficiency of energy conversion and use. Together they can mitigate the climate crisis, greatly reduce pollution of air, water and land, create more jobs than are lost in the fossil fuel industries they replace, and contribute to energy independence and social equity. The best technical energy supply strategy is transitioning fossil fuelled electricity to renewables, electrifying most heating and transportation, and producing fuels by using renewable electricity to make hydrogen and ammonia. This technological transition is necessary and urgent, but unlikely to be sufficiently rapid to avoid irreversible climate change. Substantial demand reductions are needed by rich countries, beyond the technological measures of energy efficiency. This would entail an end to growth in energy production, materials extraction, land clearing and population, that is, the creation of a steady-state economy within Earth’s biocapacity.