Plenty of environmentalists—and not a few politicians—are disappointed with the G-8’s long-awaited plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change. But one group should be thrilled: anybody with a stake in the future of “clean coal.”

The agreement by the rich-country club to aspire to cut GHG emissions by 50% by 2050 is basically a paean to the prospects of clean coal. To wit: The main concerns of the G-8, as laid out in the group’s joint statement, are to avoid the most severe consequences of global warming by cutting emissions, but only by guaranteeing “sustainable economic development” and “energy security.”

In the short term, the group wants to accelerate development of existing clean-energy technologies, like wind and solar power (and even much-maligned biofuels got a vote of confidence.)

But in the medium and long term, meeting the group’s goal of cutting emissions “will depend on the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies in ways that will enable us to meet our sustainable economic development and energy security objectives. In this regard, we emphasize the importance and urgency of adopting appropriate measures to stimulate development and deployment of innovative technologies and practices.”

That appears to mean clean coal. While some other energy technologies got a nod, like nuclear power or renewable energy, clean coal received the most attention and the biggest boost—on paper at least:

We strongly support the launching of 20 large-scale [carbon capture and storage]demonstration projects globally by 2010, taking into account various national circumstances, with a view to beginning broad deployment of CCS by 2020. To accelerate these and other efforts, we are committed to increasing investment in both basic and applied environmental and clean energy technology research and development (R&D), and the promotion of commercialization including through direct government funding and fiscal measures to encourage private sector investment.

Which raises a few questions. If clean-coal demonstration projects are such a priority, why did the U.S. government pull the plug on the FutureGen clean-coal pilot plant in Illinois? And while politicians around the world are hopeful clean coal will be a commercial reality in just over a decade, people in the industry (not to mention coal opponents) are less sanguine.

And what about the economics of clean coal? Coal’s main appeal is that it is cheaper than other generation technology, thanks to ample coal supplies. But coal is getting a lot more expensive thanks to rampant global demand; Asian coal prices have tripled in the past year. Installing technology to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from burning coal adds even more cost, and makes plants run less efficiently. And then there’s the expensive problem of how to store the stuff safely underground for hundreds of years.

President Bush has long said that technology, rather than simple belt-tightening, will provide the tools to fight climate change. But policy-makers also always say they don’t want to pick winners from among competing energy technologies. Is the G-8 trying to cherry pick clean-tech winners?