The Indian government weakened rules to curb pollution caused by its expanding coal industry after lobbying by top producers, even as it agreed internationally to phase down the use of coal, an investigation by Climate Home has found.
India’s coal giants pushed back hard against environmental regulation meant to tighten up the disposal of fly ash – a byproduct of coal-fired power plants known to harm both humans and the environment if not managed properly.
Letters sent by coal companies to the Indian government – and accessed by Climate Home News through freedom of information requests to government agencies – reveal lobbying efforts to weaken federal rules between 2019 and 2023.
The state-run firms involved were Coal India Limited (CIL), the world’s third-biggest coal mining company, and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited, one of the top 10 coal-fired power companies globally.
Top management at the coal giants claimed their organisations would not be able to comply fully with the government regulations, aimed at controlling fly ash disposal after decades of public health impacts for local communities. Even after the rules were approved, the companies continued efforts to weaken them, in some cases successfully.
Residents of Kuruvimedu village in Tamil Nadu show coal dust and fly ash on 10 March 2017 (Photo: Sajan Ponappa/Greenpeace)
NTPC argued financial constraints would keep them from meeting the new requirements to clean up waste accumulated over decades and prevent further ash pollution, according to the accessed documents.
In some cases, lobbying got results and regulations were eased, with the environment and power ministries drawing on arguments from both companies in official correspondence between government agencies.
Climate Home contacted the two coal companies and India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for comment on the issues raised in this article but did not receive a response.
COP26 commitment
In 2021, while the proposed fly ash mandates were under discussion in India, the country was negotiating the COP26 climate pact in Glasgow, which calls on all governments to take action “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”.
At those UN talks, India rejected stronger language on a global shift away from coal, but it agreed to scale back unabated coal power, which is produced without technology to reduce its climate-heating emissions.
Despite this deal, coal infrastructure around the world has since grown, mostly driven by added coal mining and power capacity in India, China and Indonesia.
The Indian documents obtained by Climate Home reveal that the South Asian nation’s coal companies lobbied against regulations on fly ash pollution while expanding coal production at record speed.
In their correspondence with ministries, they argued that high fines for non-compliance with waste disposal rules were a risk to their financial sustainability and raised the prospect of coal-fired power plants being shut down, triggering a power crisis in the country.
A letter from the NTPC’s director of operations to the environment ministry on February 8, 2022. Highlights by Climate Home News
Fly ash pollution
When thermal power plants burn coal for energy, the fly ash they generate as a byproduct is dumped in water-filled, dam-like structures called dykes.
Old “legacy” dykes store ash from previous decades and are a major source of pollution for nearby communities, explained independent air pollution analyst Sunil Dahiya. Wet ash can leach into groundwater, while dry ash can blow away, causing air pollution and damaging crops.
Functioning disposal sites are also vulnerable to heavy rains, as they can overflow and pollute nearby settlements. This happened on at least three occasions between 2019 and 2021, according to a 2021 report by the NGO Fly Ash Watch Group.
To minimise the impacts of fly ash, companies can recycle it into products like bricks, cement sheets, panels and other construction materials – a process known as “utilisation”.
Children playing beside one of the many ash dykes of the NTPC Sipat Thermal Power Plant on March 11, 2017 (Saagnik Paul/Greenpeace)
Sehr Raheja, climate change officer at the Indian think-tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), highlighted the need to utilise “legacy” ash given “the enormous quantity”, adding there are risks involved with it staying underground, such as water and soil pollution.
As of 2019, the amount of accumulated unused ash in the country was about 1.65 billion tonnes, according to a CSE report, with newer estimates suggesting even more, she said.
“Loophole” in regulation
Fly ash regulation – known officially as the Fly Ash Notification – has been in place in India since 1999. But it was not until a 2021 update to the rules that fines were introduced for failing to comply with proper waste disposal, following the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
The regulation also imposed a mandate on thermal power plants to ensure 100% utilisation of accumulated old fly ash, as well as fresh ash produced by ongoing operations.
Documents accessed by Climate Home show that NTPC exchanged letters with government agencies asking for elimination of the mandate to clean up accumulated ash.
“It is proposed that the provisions for utilization of old legacy ash may be dropped,” reads a 2021 letter from NTPC to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
A letter from NTPC’s managing director to the environment ministry on June 11, 2021. Highlights by Climate Home News
The 2021 rules were nonetheless passed, and they did introduce strict fines for coal companies. However, they also included what experts called a “loophole”.
The fly ash regulation exempted power plants from having to find a use for their old legacy ash as long as the ponds where it was stored were considered “stabilised”, meaning they had been secured against leakage. But the technical specifications of how that should be done were not defined, leading to concerns that arbitrary exemptions could be granted.
Yet even after these revamped regulations came into force in late 2021, lobbying intensified.
Persistence pays off
In 2022, NTPC was still concerned by a deadline of 10 years to utilise all legacy ash accumulated over decades, according to a letter addressed to the environment ministry. This would force them to transfer large quantities of fly ash to end users like brick-making kilns or ceramic product makers – or pay fines.
NTPC met with regulators at the Ministry of Power and agreed an extension to the period for stabilising old ash dykes from one to three years.
In the case of “operational” ponds, officials were persuaded not to label them as legacy ash, exempting them from the requirement for full utilisation. These changes were included in a 2022 amendment to the rules.
A civil servant’s notes from a meeting between government officials and the NTPC on 5 July 2022. Highlights by Climate Home News
Shripad Dharmadhikary, who leads civil-society research group Manthan Adhyayan Kendra and has worked on fly ash management, said the unclear definition of stabilisation and longer time-frame for doing it provided “a loophole for power plants to evade use or proper disposal of legacy ash”
The lack of technical parameters meant government authorities could struggle to guarantee that no more leaks would occur even if they certified the ponds, he added.
“Threat” to coal industry finances
The powerful companies also managed to limit the level of fines for non-compliance in a prolonged effort that began in 2020, when the first draft proposal on the new fly ash rules was circulated among coal companies.
That included a fine of Rs 1,500 (about $17.80) per tonne, which was cut to Rs 1,000 ($11.90) in the final 2021 rules after NTPC and other coal companies opposed it and asked for it to be removed entirely.
Even after this, executives from both Coal India and NTPC expressed alarm about the financial implications of the fines.
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In a February 2022 letter to the Ministry of Environment, for instance, NTPC’s then director of operations Ramesh Babu V. wrote that the company could end up paying Rs 76,000 crores ($9 billion) over a decade – an amount “significant enough to threaten financial viability of NTPC and country’s thermal sector alike”. He warned that the penalties could make large power stations at mining pit heads commercially unviable, leading to a “power crisis”.
Similarly, in a 2023 letter, CIL chairman and managing director Pramod Agrawal estimated that the “financial penalty” on only one of its subsidiaries (NCL) for failure to comply with the regulations could cost the latter Rs 38,145 crores (at least $4 billion) for just the 2022-2023 financial year.
Coal expansion
However, the threats the executives outlined to their companies’ bottom lines do not appear to have translated into lower capacity to mine coal and produce thermal power, as both were ramped up drastically during and after discussions on the Fly Ash Notification.
Expansion efforts were redoubled especially after an unprecedented power crisis in late 2021, which was attributed to logistical issues causing a shortage of coal supply.
In a January 2024 conference call with investors, NTPC’s management said it was considering awarding thermal power capacity of 15.2 gigawatts (GW) in the near future, on top of the 9.6 GW thermal capacity already under construction for the group.
CIL, in its latest annual report, announced plans to increase coal mining capacity to 1 billion tonnes by the financial year 2025-26.
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A previous investigation by Climate Home News showed that European asset managers invested substantially in both NTPC and CIL, helping India’s coal industry to grow rather than phase down in line with international commitments.
Air pollution expert Dahiya said that, while India has lower historical emissions than countries in the Global North and requires flexibility to meet its energy needs, as well as international support to move away from fossil fuels, that did not mean coal companies should be “free to pollute”.
Raheja, of the CSE, said better controls on pollution were also a matter of justice for those living near coal-fired power plants.
“The environmental regulations are critically important for maintaining the health of the environment and of communities residing near coal facilities – even of people far away – as pollution, both through air and water, can be carried to a distance,” Raheja told Climate Home News.
(Reporting by Akshay Deshmane; editing by Sebastian Rodriquez, Megan Rowling and Joe Lo; fact-checking by Matteo Civillini)
The post Indian coal giants pushed for lax pollution rules while ramping up production appeared first on Climate Home News.
Indian coal giants pushed for lax pollution rules while ramping up production
Aviation is on track to be responsible for 80% of the UK’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Emissions from flying have more than doubled since 1990 – driven by rising passenger numbers – even as the climate impact of every other sector in the UK economy has fallen.
The UK does not have “credible” policies in place to reverse this trend of rising emissions, says the CCC in new advice to the government on future aviation policy.
The government has signalled its support for expanding Heathrow, the nation’s largest airport, while relying on “techno-fixes” such as “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) to cut emissions.
Yet, even without Heathrow expansion, the CCC says aviation emissions are on track to be higher in 2050 than they are today – reaching 38m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2).
As the chart below shows, this would account for most of the remaining CO2 from the UK economy, all of which would need to be removed from the atmosphere in order to meet the legal target of net-zero emissions.
Expanding Heathrow would add another 2.4MtCO2 in 2050, amounting to around 5% of all the UK’s emissions. (This would increase to 4.5MtCO2 when expansion is complete in 2054.)
With a final decision on Heathrow expansion expected by 2029, the government asked the CCC for its advice on whether the plan is compatible with the UK’s climate targets.
The CCC has concluded that the UK simply lacks sufficient policies to reduce aviation emissions and “expanding Heathrow would compound the problem”. In a press briefing, CCC chair Nigel Topping told journalists:
“The UK does not currently have a credible plan to reduce [aviation emissions] in line with net-zero, so that creates a serious challenge for meeting our climate commitments.”
The “jet-zero strategy”, launched by the previous Conservative government in 2022, set out plans to cut aviation emissions. However, the Labour government has since accepted that the strategy’s expectations for SAFs, electric planes and fuel-efficiency improvements were unrealistic.
The CCC says a “credible and robust net-zero policy framework for aviation” should be set out in a revised strategy, which is planned for 2027. Only then could Heathrow expansion be aligned with the net-zero goal, adds the committee.
As part of this new strategy, the CCC says the “aviation sector needs to take responsibility for its emissions”. It says policies should be designed based on the “polluter pays” principle, requiring the aviation industry to fund its own SAFs and CO2 removal.
Specifically, the committee says funding will be needed for “engineered removal” technologies, such as direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).
These technologies are currently “not yet available at the scale required”, but are vital for the kind of permanent CO2 removal needed to mop up aviation emissions, says the CCC.
(“Natural solutions” such as tree planting are the other main way CO2 is expected to be removed from the atmosphere. However, the CCC envisages these removals offsetting the remaining methane emissions from livestock agriculture in the UK, whereas it says “engineered removals” would be required to remove and store CO2 from flights.)
The CCC acknowledges that placing decarbonisation costs on airlines would likely lead to higher ticket prices. It estimates that this could mean an increase, in 2024 prices, of around £150 for a return trip to Alicante, Spain, and £400 for a return trip to New York by 2050.
However, it says this is preferable to a public spending approach, which would result in the roughly 50% of the population who do not fly paying for flight-related CO2 removals.
In addition, the committee notes that higher costs would help to manage demand for flights, which would otherwise be expected to increase considerably over the coming decades.
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The post CCC: Heathrow expansion could push flights to ‘80% of UK emissions by 2050’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
CCC: Heathrow expansion could push flights to ‘80% of UK emissions by 2050’
A fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are linked to international trade in goods and services, a new tracker shows, spotlighting a little-studied issue that researchers say should be tackled by the UN climate process.
Currently, as part of the Paris Agreement, every country is responsible for counting and reducing the planet-heating emissions that are produced within its territory. Manufacturing countries, for example, may have high emissions even if what they make is exported for consumption elsewhere.
But new analysis from the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and climate consultancy Matière, based on the tracker’s data, shows that some countries have a high footprint of “imported emissions” from goods and services they ship in. These emissions are often ignored in the places where the products are consumed because they are not formally counted under greenhouse gas inventories.
In the European Union, for example, while domestic emissions have declined since 2015, imported emissions have remained unchanged, the analysis shows. In some countries, like Austria or Sweden, they are as high as the country’s entire annual carbon footprint.
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Former EU lead climate negotiator Jacob Werksman said that under the Paris Agreement, these traded emissions are accounted for in the countries where they are originally produced, but importing countries can also take responsibility for their consumption.
“It starts with a wide recognition by many jurisdictions around the world that we need to know the carbon content of these products, and we then need to agree what is a fair, effective, transparent and relatively easy-to-implement way of measuring that carbon in traded products,” he told a launch event for the trade emissions tracker, which contains data for different countries, sectors and gases.
Trade and its role in addressing climate change has become a higher priority at UN climate talks after a push led by emerging economies including China, India and South Africa led to the first trade and climate change dialogue held this year at the mid-year session in Bonn.
At the upcoming COP31 UN summit in Antalya, some voluntary initiatives like the Brazil-led Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade are expected to continue, but the issue does not feature in Türkiye’s Action Agenda of climate initiatives and formal negotiations are not scheduled on the topic.
China: the world’s top emissions exporter
As a manufacturing powerhouse, China ranks first in the new tracker as the world’s top-emitting country, but the data shows that a large chunk of the country’s carbon emissions – an amount larger than Brazil’s entire annual carbon footprint – are linked to products that are exported and consumed abroad.
Russia, Brazil, the US and the EU rank as the top destinations for Chinese trade-related emissions, which are mostly linked to components for power generation, basic metals like copper and lead, and non-metallic minerals like graphite and phosphorus.
Yet China is also the world’s top emissions importer, related mostly to agricultural products, fossil fuels and minerals brought from the US, the EU, Japan and India, among others. The US ranks second by a close margin, with both countries importing about 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
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Richard Baron, ECF’s industrial policy and trade director, said Chinese clean energy products are key for reducing emissions around the world, adding that Europe is “not able to do without those technologies” for its energy transition.
“China has an emissions trading system that counts CO2 differently there. But if China and the EU were to agree on some kind of translation mechanism to say ‘this is how we measure it’, and companies can understand the protocol to navigate both markets, that would set the tone for a lot of other conversations,” he said at the platform’s launch event last week.
The analysis suggests that if the EU and China aligned their climate requirements for products, the resulting standards could influence trade flows representing about 7% of global emissions.
Baron said there’s “a plethora” of multilateral spaces to hold these discussions, including the climate and trade dialogue at the UN climate talks or the Climate Club at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which seeks to cut industrial emissions.
Trade breaks into agenda of UN climate talks – but will it have teeth?
Controversial trade measures
Instruments like the Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – a recent piece of legislation that penalises emissions-heavy imported products – are one tool that could be used to address trade-related emissions, said Antoine Oger, executive director at the Institute for European Environmental Policy.
He said a significant portion of imported emissions in Europe are already covered by CBAM, as it includes sectors like cement, iron and steel, fertilisers and aluminium. This then allows the EU “to engage in constructive dialogue with our trade partners”, he added.
But across diplomatic summits, including at UN climate talks, emerging economies have pushed back heavily against the CBAM and other trade measures. The most recent BRICS declaration adopted on Saturday by 11 such countries – including China, India and Russia – condemns “protectionism under the guise of environmental objectives”.
The declaration calls for the “elimination of such unlawful measures”, which they argue have “far-reaching negative implications for the human rights, including the rights to development, health and food security” of vulnerable communities.
“The question of responsibility is a political question,” Oger said. “These emissions exist – they are emitted somewhere to make a product that will be consumed elsewhere. So you can debate responsibility but the idea is for the two parts to recognise there’s a problem.”
The aim, he added “is not to point fingers, but to accept this is a reality of our emissions profiles and ask what we can do about it”.
The post International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored appeared first on Climate Home News.
International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored
All the ambulance services in England experienced some of their busiest-ever days during this summer’s record-breaking June heatwave, according to data obtained by Carbon Brief.
In June, temperatures climbed past 37C in parts of the country as authorities declared only the second ever “red” extreme heat warning.
Four out of 10 NHS ambulance services, including London’s, responded to unprecedented numbers of life-threatening emergencies on at least one day from 23-27 June.
Another two services – in the south-west and east of the country – received their highest volume of 999 calls on record.
Ambulance services provided data on their busiest days since records began, in response to freedom-of-information (FOI) requests from Carbon Brief.
The results show how demand during the June heatwave exceeded levels seen during the traditionally busy winter season in other years – and even the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – for many services.
Heat demand
Extreme heat ramps up the risk of numerous life-threatening conditions, including heart disease and respiratory problems.
England experienced record-breaking temperatures at the end of June, with the whole country covered by amber or red “heat health alerts” from the government.
A red alert, which was issued for the entire Midlands and south of England, indicates “significant risk to life for even the healthy population”. This was only the second time such an alert has been triggered.
Researchers calculated that there were nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths in the UK this summer. There has also been unprecedented demand for A&E departments and some ambulance services.
To investigate the strain facing ambulances, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to the 10 NHS ambulance trusts in England, asking for lists of their busiest days.
This covered both the total volume of 999 calls and “category 1” responses – referring to incidents involving “life-threatening injuries and illnesses”, such as heart attacks.
The chart below shows the busiest days on record for England’s ambulances, including both total calls and category 1 responses. Most services were able to provide records back to the 2010s. (See: Methodology.)
The five-day period from 23-27 June is overrepresented in these results, with at least two heatwave days ranking in the top 20 for every service in the country.
This trend is especially pronounced in the south and east of England, where June temperatures exceeded 36C and even approached 38C in some regions.
London, South East Coast, South Central and North East ambulance services all reported daily records for responding to life-threatening emergencies during the heatwave.
For the South East Coast and South Central services – which cover a region stretching from Oxfordshire to Kent – 25, 26 and 27 June all saw unprecedented numbers of category 1 callouts.
South Western and East of England services both saw record numbers of 999 calls on 26 June, the same day the highest-ever June UK temperature was reported in Norfolk.
It is worth noting that demand for ambulance services – including category 1 calls – has been growing for many years, driven by factors such as an ageing population, more complex health conditions and growing mental-health pressures.
This helps to explain why dates from before the 2020s are rare in the top rankings provided to Carbon Brief.
Beyond the heatwave, 2026 as a whole is on track to be a record year for ambulance demand.
‘Stifling heat’
On 26 June, the busiest day of the heatwave, ambulances across England responded to 4,084 life-threatening emergencies.
The average daily volume of such incidents is normally around 2,500 during the summer months.
Stu Holliday, head of emergency preparedness, resilience and response at North East Ambulance Service, tells Carbon Brief:
“During periods of hot weather, we typically see an increase in calls from people affected by dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke, as well as those whose existing health conditions, particularly heart and respiratory illnesses, can be made worse by prolonged high temperatures.
“Older people, young children and pregnant people can be especially vulnerable.”
Ambulance teams are generally busier in the winter because cold weather and seasonal illnesses drive up the number of severe medical emergencies.
However, the data from June shows that extremely hot days are starting to match or even edge out cold ones as the busiest days. This is a trend seen across the healthcare system.
While not every service provided records back to 2019, the data broadly shows that ambulances were busier during the heatwave than at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As well as patients, heatwaves put pressure on ambulance workers. The UNISON union has warned of crews facing “stifling heat with faulty or no air conditioning” and “back-to-back callouts” due to increased demand.
Methodology
Carbon Brief requested data on the top 50 busiest days for England’s 10 main ambulance services.
These are: London; South East Coast; South Central; South Western; West Midlands; East Midlands; East of England; North East; Yorkshire; and North West.
Data was requested for as far back as service records go. Most were able to provide records going back to some point in the 2010s, with the exception of North East and South Central, which only had records from 2021 and 2022 onwards, respectively.
Rising annual demand for ambulance services means that most of the busiest days for ambulances have been in the 2020s. For example, all but four of the busiest days for category 1 emergencies reported to Carbon Brief were in the 2020s.
Carbon Brief requested data on ambulance demand for all the UK nations. In Scotland and Northern Ireland – where temperatures are cooler – services did not see call volumes reach the top 50 rankings during the June heatwave. The Welsh Ambulance Service did not respond to Carbon Brief’s request.
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The post Revealed: England’s June 2026 heatwave sparked record demand for ambulances appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: England’s June 2026 heatwave sparked record demand for ambulances
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