When you knowingly sell a product that is dangerous and that will result in the loss of life. Even if you don’t pull the trigger does that make you an accessory to murder? Japanese companies are facilitating the sale of coal fired power plants in some of the poorest countries in the world. That in itself should be a crime, but to sell them without the most advanced emission control technologies makes the crime even greater.
Over three million people from South and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, will be exposed to air pollution and face health hazards as the Japanese public finance agencies are funding 17 coal-fired power plants in the region, says a Greenpeace report.
It is estimated that the Japanese investment would cause a total of 148,000 to 410,000 avoidable premature deaths over the typical 30-year operation period of those plants, said the joint Greenpeace Southeast Asia and Greenpeace Japan report released yesterday in Singapore.
Most of those power plants located in South and Southeast Asian countries were financed by Japanese public finance agencies JBIC, JICA and NEXI. They have invested $16.7 billion in coal plants between January 2013 to May 2019, of which Indonesia is the major recipient with 42 percent, Vietnam 20 percent and Bangladesh 18 percent.
Japan has developed technology to reduce emissions and is using that in their own coal-fired plants, but they are financing far inferior technologies in other countries, the report said, adding that the Japanese government was “exporting air pollution overseas”.
Japan has a stricter guideline than WHO set recommendations for air pollution for their own country. But the power plants Japan is financing would breach the WHO guidelines, the report mentioned.
No comments:
Post a Comment