Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Peabody appears broadly unsupportive of ambitious action on climate change, and continues to support a sustained role for coal in the future energy mix. Peabody appears to have limited engagement with specific climate policy in 2020-21, but has previously lobbied negatively on policies in Australia and the US.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: In Peabody’s 2020 ESG Report, published in 2021, the company recognized the causal link between human activity and climate change. This represents a shift from Peabody’s previous opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change in 2016. Peabody’s 2020 ESG Report and 2020 Statement on Climate Change both suggest that the company does not support urgent action on climate change, emphasizing climate solutions that heavily rely on technologies such as CCS to reduce GHG emissions in order to enable a continued role for coal.
Peabody also does not appear to support ambitious government policy, describing the regulation of the mining industry as "regulatory creep" in a November 2019 submission to the Productivity Commission in Australia on Resources Sector Regulations. InfluenceMap has not been able to find clear evidence of the company’s support for the Paris Agreement.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Peabody has had limited but negative engagement with climate regulations in Australia and the US. In a 2018 consultation with the federal government in Australia, Peabody lobbied for the expansion of exemptions for emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) industries to the coal sector under the Emissions Reduction Fund. In a 2019 press release, Peabody supported the adoption of the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule to replace the more ambitious Clean Power Plan in the US. This followed direct lobbying in favor of the ACE rule in a submission to the Environmental Protection Agency in October 2018, in which Peabody advocated a more restrictive “inside the fence” approach to emissions reduction. In a separate 2018 submission to the US Council of Environmental Quality, Peabody opposed the consideration of Scope 3 emissions from environmental impact assessments for coal project approvals.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Peabody appears unsupportive of an energy transition, stating in its 2020 Statement on Climate Change that coal “will continue to play a significant role in the global energy mix for the foreseeable future”. The statement also advocates the deployment of high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) and carbon capture, use and storage (CCS) technologies to achieve “the ultimate goal of near-zero emissions from coal”, but without reference to specific timelines for the technologies or an overall reduction of coal use in the energy mix in line with IPCC guidance.
In Peabody’s 2018 submission to the US EPA on the ACE rule, the company supported an “inside the fence” approach to emissions reduction, which focuses mitigation efforts on improving the thermal efficiency of coal-fired power plants rather than replacing them with natural gas or renewables. In the same submission, Peabody also lobbied to exclude CCUS from the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) framework under the ACE rule, which means that emissions from coal can be higher. In Australia, Peabody has directly lobbied for faster approval processes for fossil fuel projects, including coal, in response to federal government consultations in 2018 and 2019.
Industry Association Governance: Peabody has disclosed its memberships to US industry associations as mandated by regulations, including several organizations that lobby negatively on climate policy such as the National Mining Association, the US Chamber of Commerce and World Coal Association. However, this list does not include memberships to key industry associations that have consistently opposed ambitious climate policy in Australia, such as Minerals Council of Australia and Queensland Resources Council. Peabody’s disclosure also does not include detailed information about the climate positions and influencing activities of its associations, an assessment of alignment on climate change, or the company’s governance processes for industry association memberships.