Despite the CO2 promises, Japan is facing heat because of the financing of coal-fired power plants in Bangladesh

Digital star report

Fri 23.07.2021 1:24 p.m.

The location for a coal power plant in Matarbari from Cox’s Bazar’s Maheshkhali Upazila. Star file photo

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The location for a coal power plant in Matarbari from Cox’s Bazar’s Maheshkhali Upazila. Star file photo

Despite Tokyo’s commitment to help phase out fossil fuels, Bangladesh is currently building the Matarbari coal-fired power plant: a power plant complex that is due to be completed by 2024 thanks to low-interest loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

And JICA, a government agency, is considering funding an expansion of the ten-year-old project known as Matarbari Phase 2 – although it said earlier this year it would be working with Bangladesh “to promote a low-carbon or low-carbon project.” Transformation “of its energy industry, reports a special article by Benjamin Parkin in the Financial Times.

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The debate over the Matarbari plant embodies the tensions in Japan’s fossil fuel policy, Benjamin writes. And funding the country’s coal power in developing countries like Bangladesh runs the risk of not keeping pace with the promotion of renewable energies at home and abroad.

Japan has long been investing in Bangladesh’s infrastructure, a partnership that dates back almost to the independence of the South Asian nation 50 years ago.

But JICA’s support for the Matarbari units has been heavily criticized. “Japan has no right to invest in coal in other countries – they have a responsibility to ensure zero emissions,” argues Hasan Mehedi, an activist with the Bangladesh Working Group on External Debt, which opposes the project. Japan “makes money … by transferring pollution to other countries so they can clean themselves,” Mehedi said, according to the Financial Times report.

Although there is some ambiguity about official Japanese policy – there is still no clear ban on coal projects abroad – the government made its strongest pledge to date at the G7 summit in the UK last month: agreeing, all new direct state ones End support for unreduced coal-based power generation abroad by the end of 2021 (i.e. plants that do not capture the carbon dioxide they produce).

That left some pipeline projects, including Matarbari Phase 2, in no man’s land. You are now against official policy, but commitments have been made. JICA says preparatory surveys will continue.