Understanding the Political Economy of Coal in Light of Climate and Energy Policies: a Case Study from Colombia

Colombia faces the challenge to rapidly meet a growing electricity demand, while sustaining its economic growth within a trajectory that is compatible to keeping global warming well below 1.5 °C. The challenge is manifold. On one side, Colombia is aiming to significantly increase its coal-based thermal generation capacity, regardless of an electricity sector dominated by large hydropower generation, and ongoing plans to increase its non-conventional renewables generation capacity. On the other side, coal mining for exports is a powerful economic driver that places the country high up in the global coal supply-chain among the five largest exporters in the world. Transitioning away from fossil fuels is a priority for climate policy, and reducing coal production and consumption is at the core of the discussion. Yet, shifting away from coal not only revolves around economic or technical challenges, but also on political dynamics driven by actors who may have interests at stake from specific decisions. Understanding Colombia’s focus on coal, both on the demand and supply side, requires acknowledging the drivers that shape the country’s climate and energy policy formulation. To do so, we carried out a systematic analysis based on the political economy framework developed by Jakob et al. (in review), which aims to identify the actors that influence policies, the objectives that matter to them, and the context in which decision-making takes place. Through data collected from semi-structured interviews with experts at the centre of Colombian climate and energy policy formulation, we identified three main goals: i) maintaining the revenue stream from coal mining activites, ii) guaranteeing energy security and reliability; and iii) reducing socio-environmental conflictivities. These goals operate around contextual factors in which natural resource extraction is widely considered as an enabler for development, and where major concerns over the socio-ecological impacts of dams and their reduced generation capacity during times of drought threaten the reliability of energy supply. Unveiling the political and economic interests that govern coal production and consumption in Colombia could shed some light to design the appropriate and feasible policy instruments for climate mitigation and the complementary transition measures to avoid financial and socio-economic disruptances in the communities that depend on fossil fuels extraction.