A Pacific island nation has challenged plans by
the Czech
Republic to refit a coal-fired
power station, in an appeal that environmental advocates on Monday
described as the first of its kind.
The case focuses on efforts by a Czech utility,
the CEZ Group, to prolong the life of the power plant in Prunerov,
close to the German border. The Federated States of Micronesia
maintains that doing so would result in continued emissions of
greenhouse gases that contribute to global
warming, which it says threaten its existence.
“Climate change is real and it is happening on our shores,”
Andrew Yatilman, the director of Micronesia’s office of environment
and emergency management, told Reuters. “It’s a matter of
survival for us. If you look at the map of the Pacific, we’re just
dots in the middle of the ocean.”
Micronesia submitted its arguments to the Czech Ministry of
Environment on Jan. 4.
Greenpeace,
which is supporting the action by Micronesia, demanded last month
that the Czech Republic decommission the plant by 2016.
The Czech authorities were scheduled to take Micronesia’s
complaint into account this week in deciding whether the plant was
environmentally acceptable, said Jan Rovensky, an energy and climate
campaigner with Greenpeace Czech Republic.
Attempts to reach the ministry on Monday were not successful. But
Eva Novakova, a press officer for the CEZ Group, said the project
already had “obtained positive opinions” from the Czech
environmental authorities.
Ms. Novakova said that the refit and a closure of one unit would
cut emissions of carbon dioxide from the plant by 31 percent.
Pressure has increased against coal-fired power, putting obstacles
in the way of new plants in the United States and Europe.
The failure of nations at the Copenhagen conference to agree to a
timetable for a binding agreement on curbing climate change or to
agree on a target for reducing emissions by midcentury appears to
have lent new urgency to anti-coal campaigns.
Greenpeace said the Czech case put governments and companies “on
notice that states vulnerable to climate change are keen to explore
new avenues to challenge decisions on projects that contribute to
climate change.”
Prunerov is among the largest coal-fired plants in the European
Union and the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions
in the Czech Republic.
Without the refit, the plant would close in 2020, but with the
refit the station would keep operating until about 2035, said Ms.
Novakova.
Leaders of Micronesia, which consists of more than 600 islands
grouped into four states, say they are especially vulnerable to
phenomena linked to climate change, including a rising sea level,
increasingly powerful storms and ocean acidification.
(from the New York Times)