China and the future of coal: the big burning global climate question
- Beijing was among the notable absences from an agreement to phase out coal use and stop building power plants fired by the fossil fuel
- The country’s action will play a large part in whether the world realises its goal to cap global warming
For much of the past few decades, China’s growth has been powered by fossil fuels, particularly coal. While the economic gains have been vast and rapid, the toll on the environment has been huge. In the third of a four-part series, Echo Xie looks at the prospects for a new energy mix in China.
But its pledge to speed up efforts on coal was reworded at the last minute from “phase out”, as per previous drafts, to “phase down”, at the insistence of China and India.
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Climate deal to ‘phase down’ coal reached at COP26 as nations seek to avert climate disaster
Days earlier, a number of countries – including some of the world’s top 15 coal users such as South Korea, Poland and Indonesia – agreed for the first time to stop building coal-fired power plants and start phasing out coal use this decade.
China, the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, was not one of the signatories.
