Paris climate talk unlikely to affect seaborne coal market

By Adianto P. Simamora

The recent climate change meeting in Paris where the world?s leaders agree to curb temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius has become one of the most pressing issues debated at the recent coal miners meeting in Bali with analysts saying that it is not likely to produce short-term effects in seaborne coal market.

?COP21 is not likely to produce short-term effects in the seaborne coal market, as most of the new demand will come from developing countries in the Asia Pacific Region,? Gerry Feerick, Noble's director of energy for Indonesia, said.

The Conference of Parties 21 (COP) was held in Paris last December when 196 nations came together to agree on measures to curb global warming.

He said that developing countries such in Southeast Asia would still rely on coal-fired power plant although the countries are in progress to increase portion of renewable in energy mix.

?Most countries have not yet committed beyond New Policies, and it is acknowledged that peaking will take longer for developing countries,? he said, adding the developed (OECD) countries might converge faster towards a low-carbon scenario, but developing countries will not reach until after 2030.

Surya Kanegaonkar, Coal Analyst of Platts said that the renewables would grab an increasing proportion of developing market power generation in the coming years, as it has in Europe in the recent past.

?But, coal is not going anywhere ?it will remain the baseload fuel for most countries with India, Korea, Japan and Taiwan continuing to support the global seaborne trading market,? he said.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak