According to Simon Thompson, chairman of Rio Tinto, coal is “not important for human progress,” despite pressure from activist shareholders about the impact of the mining giant on climate change.
Mr. Thompson made remarks in response to comments at the company's annual general meeting, Julien Vincent, Executive Director of Market Forces Environmental Finance Group.
“In the case of coal, there are viable alternative energy sources that do not produce greenhouse gases. Therefore, we will argue that coal is not important for human progress, ”said Mr. Thompson.
But it was a different story with steel. “In the case of steel, there are no obvious substitutes in a number of areas of application,” he said.
Mr. Thompson told the audience in Perth that even wind turbines use a huge amount of steel.
“We believe that steel is necessary for the progress of mankind. If you take a developed economy, such as Australia, then probably 10 to 12 tons of steel will be installed around us per capita, in buildings, on bridges, in transport, on all kinds of machines, ”he said.
“If you take a developing country like India, it will be just one ton. Therefore, if we are not going to freeze the development of the world in its current state, it is inevitable that people will be forced to produce primary steel in order to develop, ”he said.
Iron ore is a key ingredient in steel production, and Rio is Australia's largest producer of this product.
Mr Thompson said that it was not iron ore that contributed carbon to the steelmaking process.
“It is the coking coal that is added to the blast furnaces that causes greenhouse gas emissions in steel production,” he said.
"And there are alternatives, technically feasible alternatives to using coking coal in the steel making process."
