Republic of the Philippines Commission on Human Rights
CHR-NI-2016-0001 In Re: National inquiry on the impact of climate change
on the human rights of the Filipino People
Supplementary Statement of Resource Person, Laura Gyte
1. This supplementary statement is to provide the Commissioners with the
information requested in questions following my presentation at the hearing
on 11 December 2018.
1) Methodology for calculating costs of investment in fossil fuels
2. Our figures on the climate damage resulting from investment in coal plant in
Asia are from the Oxfam research report “The AIIB’s Energy opportunity:
Background Research Report” of June 2017, produced by the Stockholm
Environment Institute for Oxfam. A copy is exhibited.1
3. Figure 1 on page 3 of the report shows the expected climate damages in Asia
per dollar invested for a typical, ultra-supercritical coal power plant (i.e. the
‘cleanest’ technology). Four estimates are given, corresponding to different
estimates of the climate damages per tonne of CO2 emissions published by
the United States Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon
(US IWGSCC, 2015). (The details and limitations of these values are
explained in the Methods section of the report starting on page 9). The report
finds that for the ultra-supercritical coal power plant, every dollar invested
could be associated with $11 damage in Asia alone, and up to $29 damage
globally. These costs include things like lost harvests, and damage to
property due to sea level rise.
4. The methodology to arrive at these figures is also set out in the Methods
section of the report from page 9.
2) Cost of renewable energy compared to fossil fuels
5. I include here some further detail on renewable energy becoming
increasingly cost competitive with fossil fuels reaching parity or cheaper, in
numerous markets (developed and developing countries).
The global picture
6. According to IRENA, since 2014, onshore wind, biomass, geothermal and
hydropower are now cheaper than new coal, oil and gas-fired power stations
on a global level - even without financial support and despite relatively low
oil prices.2
https://d1tn3vj7xz9fdh.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/file_attachments/rr-aiib-energy-opportunity-backgroundresearch-210617-en.pdf
1
2
IRENA 2017, http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_REthinking_Energy_2017.pdf, p9 and figure 1.6 on p22