EDP Joins The World's First Global Alliance To Accelerate The End Of Coal Power Generation

EDP is one of 44 companies that make part of the global alliance created from Canada and the United Kingdom to accelerate the end of coal production. Membership was announced this thursday, along with six new members, during the UN Energy Transition Coalition webinar.

EDP is one of the new members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), the world’s first and only coalition of national and sub-national governments and private sector organizations working to advance the transition away from unabated coal power generation.

Since the beginning of September, and besides EDP, six more members have joined this global effort to decarbonization:Peru, the first PPCA member in South America; Seoul, the capital of South Korea; Gyeonggi, the most populous province in South Korea; Baden-Württemberg, a state in southwest Germany; and Kaohsiung and Taichung cities. These new numbers were announced this Thursday, 17th September, by PPCA at the UN Energy Transition Coalition high-level event. With coal assets in Portugal, Spain and Brazil, which are scheduled to close by 2030, EDP – which is already a global leader in renewable energy – is now the only portuguese company present in this rank.

With these additional members, the alliance now has 111 members, including 34 national governments, 33 subnational governments and 44 businesses. The announcement was made at a high-level ministerial event, as part of a series of UN Energy Transition Coalition events hosted by the Denmark and Ethiopia missions to the UN at the one-year mark since the UN Climate Action Summit.

“EDP is delighted to join the PPCA in order to strengthen our commitment to the Paris Agreement. Reducing CO₂ emissions from coal is an important step for companies to take in the fight against climate change”, states Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, interim CEO of the utility. “EDP has been investing in low-carbon technologies for more than two decades, and we recently reaffirmed our commitment to sustainable growth when we announced the closure of our coal-fired power plants in Iberia. We look forward to continuing this journey in close partnership with the PPCA.”

With Peru as the first South American member, and new major subnational government members in South Korea, the PPCA boosts its geographical diversity, showing how its priorities resonate across the world. The new members will work together with the Alliance to pave the way to a faster coal phase-out, especially in South America and South Korea. They include a broad range of public and private sector organizations, demonstrating the Alliance’s commitment to engaging all the essential actors needed to end emission from coal power.

A global effort to ‘switch off’ coal
On behalf of the UK and Canadian Co-chairs of the Alliance, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Jonathan Wilkinson, said: “Minister Kwarteng and I are pleased to welcome the newest members of the Alliance. By joining the PPCA, they are demonstrating how their respective sectors can build back better for a future that is powered with cleaner, more sustainable energy. They are responding powerfully to the UN Secretary-General’s call to curtail coal generation and end construction of new coal plants by 2020. It is exciting to see the Alliance grow as we strive for a just, equitable and fair transition away from coal power.”

By joining the PPCA, the subnational governments of Seoul, Gyeonggi, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Baden-Württemberg pledge to accelerate the coal-to-clean transition by using the regulatory measures available to them and working with their respective national governments to push for more ambitious phase-out plans.

Seoul and Gyeonggi join South Chungcheong province – a South Korean PPCA member since 2018. Together, the three governments represent half of the Republic of Korea’s population, demonstrating the growing support for coal phase-out in the country. By joining the Alliance, they signal their opposition to the central government’s continued investment in coal power at home and abroad. The PPCA stands ready to support the Republic of Korea on energy transition, including by helping to translate the proposed Korean New Deal into concrete policies to end financing for coal power projects in the near future.

Peru is the first PPCA member in South America. With a commitment to become coal-free by 2022, Peru is well positioned to set an example to the rest of the continent, where several countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia still rely on significant coal generation capacity or, in cases of Brazil and Colombia, even plan to expand it.