In much of the Western world, coal seems like an anachronism, a fuel from a dirtier time, when workers’ black lungs and soot-coated growing cities were accepted as the cost of progress. Indeed, with coal production declining or being phased out in much of North America and Europe, and even reaching a peak in China, the future of coal is now anchored in the global South.
Where companies and governments have sought to address coal’s impacts, the measures to compensate affected workers and communities are often piecemeal, top-down, and too late. These measures very rarely start with long-term and holistic planning or human rights impact assessments, which would include asking workers how they are affected, and consulting with communities on what would compensate them adequately for their losses. If coal has benefits for overall economic development as great as its proponents claim, it should be straightforward to transfer some of the net benefits to those most harmed by the development of coal mining and energy. However, because these victims often lack any power or influence, they rarely receive anything approaching adequate remedies.
We chose four specific country case studies—Colombia, India, South Africa and Egypt—because of their geographical representation, and the diversity of their profiles in terms of coal production and consumption. Colombia, India and South Africa are three of the top coal producers in the world, but while Colombia exports almost all its coal, India and South Africa use most of the coal that they produce internally. Egypt has negligible coal reserves but has recently opened its doors to coal use in its industries.
India, the third-largest coal producer in the world, is relying on it to fuel its massive industrial expansion. As in Colombia, tribal peoples, concentrated in the coal belt states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, are frequently displaced—with their consent often fabricated, coerced, or simply never sought. Even where their homes and lands are not outright taken, indigenous and other rural peoples often face devastating pollution of their land and the rivers they rely on for drinking water, agriculture, and subsistence fishing. In addition to large mines operated by major companies, thousands of small-scale mines dot Jharkhand, with 100,000 children reportedly having worked in dangerous “rat hole” mines.
