what this 'professor' is really complaining about is the developing world coming out of poverty. the ONLY proven method of doing this for the past few hundred years since developing countries left wood behind for peat spermaceti is to begin burning fossil fuels to provide energy for running industrial processes like smelting mining, infrastructure build out etc........
this professor is not seeing the obvious hear, that slowly shale gas is being developed as a source that will begin displacing coal to the extent it can globally. this will work ONLY to lower particulate pollution and emissions than it the levels that would OTHERWISE attain without development of shale gas.
because other countries WOULD be developing themselves industrially regardless of our choice to go on shale gas or not. coal exports notwithstanding.
z

The real question is "So What?" The main driver for keeping this planet warm is water vapor with CO2 being a minor component. But, folks just keep on chasing rabbits.
"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan

Agree with zevulon.
And if we where using coal, how would that stop us from exporting it as well? We would just increase production.
Really nice to say, hey we'll lower our carbon emissions that are 100x more than yours and you should live in a hut!

Anything from the Tyndall Centre is suspect in reasoning.
As zevulon says their biggest problem appears to be wanting to keep the undeveloped nations in poverty by denying them the necessary power generation equipment to allow those economies to develop.
The other thing that most people ignore is the fact that more CO2 in the atmosphere is beneficial to all growing things be it trees, plants and food crops. Trying to reduce CO2 is tantamount to condemning people to starvation.

Strange how it is the industrialized nations that have the money and energy to care about the environment.

Ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have remained between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years. In recent centuries, however, CO2 levels have risen sharply, to at least 380 ppm. It's true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources. But the fact that CO2 levels have remained steady until very recently shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions. Now slightly more CO2 must be entering the atmosphere than is being soaked up by carbon "sinks". Deforestation would be a logical culprit. Other forms of energy would be a logical answer.

The Coal is really a side issue for the economists. The increase in natural gas supply is via fracking, which directly releases methane, a far worse greenhouse gas if leaked instead of burnt. The carbon used to power water clean-ups in fracked areas for centuries has to be counted in as well. And all the investment in gas plants has been at the expense of sustainable technology.

I don't think anyone should blame petroleum and coal for all the evils and certainly it has fed and helped bring to fruition the industrial revolution. But we have other alternatives to create energy today that pollute less these days. Unfortunately, these techniques are somewhat expensive, at least initially and there is no push bringing them out to developing countries. In the meantime, we'll continue seeing more and more of these Business-politico shenanigans where only a few will benefit financially, leaving the rest of the world to pay for that privilege. Machiavelli couldn't have written it any better.

Amazing illogic. Because we will use more gas and export more coal (rather than burning it ourselves) then abundant natural gas is bad????

Ivan4, some nice dumb cherry picking there. By the same measure, fish do really well in water, so we should welcome flooding of low-lying cites.