In the EU, phasing out emissions often means paying someone to take over polluting plants—and keep them running.
to consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Even Ørsted, the ultimate clean energy success story, in 2016 sold its fossil fuel business to Ineos Group, the chemicals giant owned by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, to help its much-lauded transformation into a wind power juggernaut.
Plenty of firms have also closed coal plants and replaced them with cleaner alternatives: In Europe, coal generation has dropped by roughly 40 percent over the past decade,while wind and solar power have grown, thanks to state subsidies and advances in renewable technology. But many of the coal plants that were simply sold off have stayed on the grid for years: In 2021, coal still made up 15 percent of the EU’s electricity mix, Ember’s data estimates.
Climate campaigners have long decried divestments that simply shift emissions elsewhere. Both Greenpeace and members of Sweden’s Green Party, at the time part of the country’s coalition government, were critical of the Vattenfall deal. Lately, large investors have struck a similar note. Larry Fink, chair and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, lambasted energy companies for selling their assets instead of winding them down during last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
EPH did not make Křetínský available for an interview and declined to comment on how its coal plants have been performing over the past year. Daniel Častvaj, a spokesperson for the company, points out that EPH has already reduced its annual emissions by close to 30 million tonnes since 2014, for example by closing down a coal plant in the UK and converting another to burn biomass.
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