The Beyond Coal movement is a campaign by environmental group the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who b ...

to promote

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

instead of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

. Their primary objective is to close coal power plants in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, including at least one-third of the country's more than 500 coal plants by 2020, and to replace them with renewable energy sources. The campaign is also active in other countries; for example, they are trying to prevent the construction of the Kosovo C thermal power plant near

Pristina Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in District of Pristina, Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population o ...

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...

; to this end, they have collaborated with academic and

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

climate advisor Dan Kammen. Other objectives include keeping coal in the ground, specifically in

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, C ...

and the

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...

, where the majority of American coal reserves are located, and preventing coal from being exported from America. The campaign has received at least $80 million from

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

and his philanthropic foundation,

Bloomberg Philanthropies Bloomberg Philanthropies is a philanthropic organization that encompasses all of the charitable giving of founder Michael R. Bloomberg. Headquartered in New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its resources on five areas: the environmen ...

. During the early Presidency of George W. Bush, an energy task force convened by

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...

advocated the construction of 200 new coal plants in the United States, warning that if they were not built the entire country would face load shedding as California had just seen. During the Bush administration, the Beyond Coal campaign prevented 170 of the 200 plants from being built.

Europe Beyond Coal

In November 2017, a similar campaign, calle
Europe Beyond Coal
was launched in Europe. This campaign is inspired by the US Beyond Coal campaign but is independent of it. Europe Beyond Coal is an alliance of civil society groups working to catalyse the closures of coal mines and power plants, prevent the building of any new coal projects and hasten the

just transition Just transition is a framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable production, primarily combating climat ...

to clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency. Over 30 NGOs, including

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

, WWF, EEB,

Climate Action Network Climate Action Network - International (CAN) is a global network of over 1,300 environmental non-governmental organisations in over 130 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecol ...

Europe and many others, take part in the European campaign.

References

{{reflist Sustainable energy Environmental organizations based in the United States Sierra Club Energy policy of the United States Environmental impact of the coal industry

Europe Beyond Coal

See also

References