Bloomberg's anti-coal campaign criticized

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, has come under fire from the coal industry over his plan to donate $500 million to help shut every coal power plant in the United States by 2030.

Bloomberg announced his campaign, Beyond Carbon, in a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday. The billionaire's investment in the initiative marks the largest ever philanthropic effort to combat climate change, according to his foundation.

His aim is to eliminate all remaining coal plants and will bypass the federal government and instead seek to pass climate and clean energy policies, as well as back political candidates at the state and local level. He said he hoped that the coal plants will be replaced with renewable energy sources.

A spokesman for Bloomberg told The New York Times that the $500 million will be spent over three years to fund lobbying efforts by environmental groups that target state legislatures and city councils to close plants.

Jason Bostic, vice-president of the West Virginia Coal Association, told China Daily: "It's just what we expected from a bunch of folks that don't understand how energy is produced and consumed in this country and probably don't care about the welfare of the average people in the country that have to pay their electric bills."

Bloomberg criticized what he sees as inaction by the federal government and US President Donald Trump's administration to tackle climate change.

"We can't wait to act. … Climate change is now first and foremost a political problem, not a scientific quandary or even a technological puzzle," he told MIT graduates.

He took direct aim at Trump, as the president had pledged to revive the coal industry's "clean, beautiful, coal" as far back as the 2016 presidential race.

"I think he[Bloomberg] really does not understand the implications for the country when you take away baseload power. And you can't run a country the size and complexity of the United States on windmills and renewables," Bostic said. "You need good coal-fired baseload energy to be the backstop and the bedrock of the country's energy.… It's either he doesn't understand or he truly does have ill intent in his heart for the manufacturing base of this country."

Phil Smith, director of communications for the United Mine Workers of America, called Bloomberg's initiative "misguided".

"By doing so he is going to put about 800,000 people out of work. He proposes no solutions for those folks to continue employment anywhere," Smith told China Daily. "He puts at risk the pensions of hundreds of thousands of retirees with no solution on how to fix that problem either."

"I wish he would direct his resources into doing something that is going to have an impact on global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change," Smith added. "Shutting down every coal fired plant in the US will have a negligible, like less than two percent impact, on greenhouse gases in the world."