The people of Thar, with the support of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, sent a letter with their signatures to the Chinese Ambassador in Pakistan requesting him to review Thar Coal projects and not acquire any land until the official policy for land procurement was duly announced.
Syed Mohammad Ali Shah, the chairperson Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Ms Mehwish Laghari, Mohammad Aslam Mallah, Naseer Noun and Abdul Aziz Halepoto addressed a press conference in Islamkot Press Cub on Sunday during the inauguration ceremony of the letter. They said that due to coal mining and coal power plants, negative impacts were visible in the shape of degradation of the environment. Earlier in September 2020, Shah said, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a commitment to drastically reduce emissions. While speaking via a video link to the UN general assembly in New York, he announced that China would aim to hit peak emissions before 2030 and for carbon neutrality by 2060. On the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on 12th December 2020, the Chinese president announced some further commitments. While speaking at the recently held Climate Ambition Summit 2020, Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, announced that Pakistan will not have ‘any more power based on coal’ to embrace renewable energy as part of its contribution in global efforts against climate change.
“We welcome the Chinese companies and banks to shore up support for Pakistan’s renewable energy infrastructure deployment,” he said. The letter stated that combustion of coal involved emissions of certain air pollutants, causing serious health and environmental risks. Notwithstanding the fact that it has already been suffering from the air pollution levels that are among the highest in the world, Pakistan has not developed any emission standards. Nor has any national clean air action plan been formulated to reduce air pollution in a time bound manner, the letter added. The PFF chairman said that extensive water requirements of coal mining and power plants was likely to cause severe water and drainage crisis: Extensive groundwater extraction involved in dewatering for coalmining and huge supplies of water for cooling the boilers of coal-fired power plants will cause severe water and drainage crisis. Besides, groundwater extraction will deplete the water table in Thar while the proposed water supply scheme from Farsh Makhi Canal for coal power plants will adversely affect water rights of the farmers in the canal command area.
The letter further added that the land degradation to be caused by open-pit mining would have serious implications on biodiversity. In addition, disposal of brine water from mines and effluent water with coal ash from power plants will leach underground and cause severe land degradation, negatively impacting the survival of indigenous plant species. The ongoing land acquisition and resettlement processes taking place in Thar without any official policy are characterized by arbitrariness, exclusionary decision-making, non-transparency and extraordinary delays in payment of compensation amounts, they said. Moreover, there does not exist any system to proactively provide land acquisition and resettlement related official information to the affected communities.
Blatant violations of United Nations’ ‘Basic Principles and guidelines on development based evictions and displacement’ are made in the land acquisition for coal power projects in Thar. “Forced evictions coupled with no proper compensation against the grazing lands have been causing massive impoverishment among the displaced families, a significant number of which are landless,” Shah said. They said that people of Thar were assured time and again that the coal power projects would usher in an era of unprecedented growth, progress and development for Thari people by creating job opportunities for the local communities. However, they are offered unskilled, low-paid, menial and temporary jobs. Recently, as many as 150 workers have been sacked by a coal company without serving them any prior letter or notice.
They demanded that the government of China should review all the ongoing coal mining and coal-based power plants in Thar so as to ensure compliance of social and environmental standards. Following the precedence of Bangladesh, the government of China should support no more coal power projects in Thar. Nor should it support scaling-up of any of existing coal power projects in Thar. Besides, they demanded, The Embassy of China in Pakistan should immediately establish a transparent mechanism to redress the grievances of local communities affected by the ongoing coal power projects in the desert district of Tharparkar.
The letter written to the hih-ups of Chinese functionaris on coal extraction from Thar
We represent three civil society organizations from Pakistan, endeavoring to defend human rights and protect the environment in the processes of what is called development in common parlance. Against the backdrop of the challenges posed by climate change, we realize that international cooperation to maintain our planet earth health has become all the more important and urgent. It is the time for all the stakeholders, including the governments, financial institutions, banks, businesses, civil society organization and the native people, to come together and find common ground for ensuring social and environmental justice in national and international development. Supporting China’s commitment to fight climate change and initiative to make BRI green: In September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a commitment to drastically reduce emissions. While speaking via a video link to UN general assembly in New York, he announced that China would aim to hit peak emissions before 2030 and for carbon neutrality by 2060 . On the fifth anniversary of Paris Agreement on 12th December 2020, the Chinese president announced some further commitments for 2030: China will lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by over 65 percent from the 2005 level, increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 percent, increase the forest stock volume by 6 billion cubic meters from the 2005 level, and bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts . We welcome this commitment on the part of China to fight climate change. Earlier at the second Belt and Road Forum in April, 2019, Xi said: “We need to pursue open, green and clean cooperation. The Belt and Road is not an exclusive club; it aims to promote green development. We may launch green infrastructure projects, make green investment and provide green financing to protect the Earth which we all call home” . We also appreciate and support the Chinese initiative for making the BRI green.
China’s pledge to fight climate change and make BRI green is in line with Pakistan’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. While speaking at the recently held Climate Ambition Summit 2020, Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, announced that Pakistan will not have ‘any more power based on coal’ to embrace renewable energy as part of its contribution in global efforts against climate change . In light of Pakistani premier’s announcement for developing clean energy and China’s commitment to the Paris Agreement and building a green BRI, we welcome the Chinese companies and banks to shore up support for Pakistan’s renewable energy infrastructure deployment. We hope Sino-Pak cooperation to promote renewable energy under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—a project of BRI—will go a long way to ease local energy shortages, fight climate change and ensure sustainable development in Pakistan. We expect the green investments made under BRI will also be quite instrumental in ensuring social and environmental justice in Pakistan.
Social and environmental justice: a key to sustainable developmentWe believe that social and environmental justice is a must for sustainable development. Here in the following lines, we want to apprise you of our concerns (the details of which can be seen in the appendix) regarding the ongoing project to extract 6.8 Mtpa coal and develop a mine mouth power plant of 1,300MW (2x660MW) generation capacity, which Shanghai Electric has been executing in collaboration with Sino Sindh Resource Limited (SSRL)—a subsidiary of Global Mining (China)—, Ex-Im Bank of China and ICBC.
Emissions from coal power projects posing serious health and environmental risks: Combustion of coal involves emissions of certain air pollutants, causing serious health and environmental risks. Notwithstanding the fact that it has already been suffering from the air pollution levels that are among the highest in the world, Pakistan has not developed any emission standards. Nor has any national clean air action plan been formulated to reduce air pollution in a time bound manner. Presently there isn’t any clarity on the observance of any emission standards in the massive cluster of coal mines and power plants currently being developed in Thar. Against this backdrop of no effective environmental governance mechanisms in place, compliance of any emissions standards in the development and operations of coal mines and power doesn’t seem possible. Emissions from Thar coal mines and power plants will expose the local population to serious health risks besides causing severe environmental damage to the desert’s physical and natural environment . We are keen to know from the Shanghai Electric, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of China about the emission standards they have been maintaining to stop air pollution. Extensive water requirements of coal mining and power plants to cause severe water and drainage crisis: Extensive groundwater extraction involved in dewatering for coalmining and huge supplies of water for cooling the boilers of coal-fired power plants will cause severe water and drainage crisis. Groundwater extraction will deplete the water table in Thar while the proposed water supply scheme from Farsh Makhi Canal for coal power plants will adversely affect water rights of the farmers in the canal command area. Besides the brine water discharged from coal mines and chemical effluents from coal power plants will contaminate the groundwater. The water crisis thus caused will adversely impact both the lives and livelihoods of local people and indigenous flora and fauna in Thar. The proposed water supply scheme is designed to pass through the bed of Puran River , blocking the natural drainage and exposing the local communities to potential flood disaster during heavy rains in lower Sindh . We ask the authorities concerned to share the measures they have been adopting to maintain the health of local hydrology in development of coal mining and power plant in Thar Coal Block-I.
Land degradation to be caused by open-pit mining will have serious implications on biodiversity: The ongoing open-pit mining in Thar is oblivious to the social and environmental problems caused by it. Massive excavations of different layers of soil for open pit mining and then closing these pits after exhausting the coal reserves are likely to destroy the roots of many drought resilient plants of Thar Desert. In addition, disposal of brine water from mines and effluent water with coal ash from power plants will leach underground and cause severe land degradation, negatively impacting the survival of indigenous plant species. Extinction of these plants, which provide fodder for the animals and habitat to wildlife, will have adverse impacts on biodiversity. Loss of biodiversity thus will induce ecological imbalance as well as food insecurity and impoverishment of the livestock dependent local communities. We ask Shanghai Electric, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of China to share the system they have put in place to safeguard biological diversity, particularly in coal mining.
The land acquisition causing massive displacement, dispossession and disempowerment: The ongoing land acquisition and resettlement processes taking place in Thar without any official policy are characterized by arbitrariness, exclusionary decision-making, non-transparency and extraordinary delays in payment of compensation amounts. Moreover, there does not exist any system to proactively provide land acquisition and resettlement related official information to the affected communities. Blatant violations of United Nations’ ‘Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development Based Evictions and Displacement ’ are made in the land acquisition for coal power projects in Thar. Forced evictions coupled with no compensation against the grazing land have been causing massive impoverishment among the displaced families, a significant number of which are landless. Massive irregularities and human rights violations in the land acquisition process have been causing a sense of deprivation and anger among the local communities. We demand immediate stoppage of land acquisition in Thar coalfield block one until an official policy, considerate to basic human and livelihood rights of the affected communities, is adopted.
Conclusion: We believe that the social and environmental problems emanating from Thar coal projects are against the spirit of China’s Green Credit Guidelines as well as the Paris Agreement and other international laws and treaties. They pose serious reputational risks to the Shanghai Electric, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of China. Here we invite Shanghai Electric, ICBC and Ex-Im Bank of China to sort out the above-mentioned social and environmental problems related to Thar coal through a dialogue with Pakistani civil society. The proposed dialogue can be started with a phone call or virtual meeting at the earliest. We request you to pause the subject-mentioned coal power project unless our above-mentioned social and environmental concerns are properly addressed through the proposed dialogue. Hope you will positively consider our concerns and requests. Please let us know if you have any questions or need more information regarding our concerns and request for pausing the project. We expect an open and positive communication with Chinese stakeholders.
We are sending the same letter to Pakistani stakeholders in the subject-mentioned coal power project in Thar.
Sincerely
Mr Mohammad Ali Shah, Chairman, Pakistan Fisher-folk Forum
Be the first to comment on "Tharis write a letter to Chinese authorities against coal projects"