...to countries [1] who need it for their societies and economies to function and grow.
Is the argument that the noble thing to do would be to refuse to sell the coal, and force these countries to use more expensive forms of energy, regardless of whether it keeps more of their people in poverty for longer?
It's an easy thing to say for those of us already living in first world countries with access to all the modern comforts.
And sure, Japan and Korea are not poor countries, but they are populous, resource-poor countries with huge manufacturing industries (producing some of the world's most fuel-efficient cars, no less), so they have to import their energy from somewhere.
The coal is still important for the economic wellbeing and personal welfare of the people in those countries, whether it's used for power generation or materials production.
Notice how easy and noble-seeming it is to say that, compared to saying "I believe we should force more people in developing countries to stay in poverty for longer", even though they amount to the same thing?
Please understand, I'm with you that climate change is important to mitigate; I lived through the bushfires and smoke haze this Australian summer, and I worry about the prospect of that being a more normal part of our future.
I'm also expecting a child and have concerns for their future, as well the broader effects of climate change and environmental damage on humanity and nature everywhere.
But I know that it will take more than scapegoating Australian politicians (funny how it's the conservative politicians that get attacked over this, even though their coal export policies aren't substantially different from Labor's) to fix the problem, when the whole reason for the demand for coal is that people in the developing world just want, quite reasonably, a standard of living approaching what we in the west take for granted.
If these discussions involved sensible ideas about how developing countries could modernise their economies without fossil fuels, or acknowledged that large-scale carbon capture will have to be part of a comprehensive climate change solution, then I might be able to start taking them seriously.
But I guess that kind of discussion doesn't deliver the quick hit of sanctimony that so many people seem to crave.
Is the argument that the noble thing to do would be to refuse to sell the coal, and force these countries to use more expensive forms of energy, regardless of whether it keeps more of their people in poverty for longer?
It's an easy thing to say for those of us already living in first world countries with access to all the modern comforts.
And sure, Japan and Korea are not poor countries, but they are populous, resource-poor countries with huge manufacturing industries (producing some of the world's most fuel-efficient cars, no less), so they have to import their energy from somewhere.
[1] Major importers of Australian metallurgical coal are India, Japan and China. Major importers of Australian thermal coal are Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-res...