Carbon financing initiative could retire many coal plants in S-E Asia by 2030

Project guides owners and investors on using carbon offsets to fund early closure of plants

- David Fogarty

Dozens of coal-fired power plants, many of them in Southeast Asia, could be retired early by 2030 by using a carbon financing initiative, a sustainability conference heard on April 17.

The Rockefeller Foundation-led Coal to Clean Credit Initiative(CCCI) guides power plant owners and their investors to use carbon offsets to fund early plant retirement. These transition credits are nascent but have strong support from Singapore's central bank and other financial institutions.

Transition credits aim to monetise the emissions savings from the early closure of coal plants. Revenue would come from the sale of high-integrity carbon credits to companies or governments, with each credit representing a tonne of emissions avoided by shutting a power plant early.

In many cases, the early closure of each plant is likely to avoid millions of tonnes of emissions.

The goal of CCCI is to retire 60 coal plants globally by 2030 and transition credit financing is a key lever for achieving that, said Ms Elizabeth Yee, the Rockefeller Foundation's executive vice-president of programmes.

She was speaking during Ecosperity Week 2024, a sustainability conference convened by Singapore's investment company Temasek, held from April 15 to 17 at Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

Many of the 60 coal plants she mentioned would be in South-east Asia, Dr Joseph Curtin, managing director of the power and climate team at the Rockefeller Foundation, told The Straits Times.

"When you take the whole subset of eligible coal plants, there could be a couple of thousand globally. So we think trying to get 50 or 60 across the line by 2030 is a realistic objective," he said.