Climate Changed
Coal Isn't Coming Back, Even With Trump Leaving the Paris Accord
- Natural gas and renewables have decimated coal’s market share
- ‘Business math’ is driving move to gas and solar: utility CEO
Trump Announces U.S. Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord
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President Donald Trump just made good on his campaign vow to leave the Paris climate accord. Now, the hard part: making American coal great again.
In announcing his withdrawal from the international pact to fight global warming, Trump touted mines opening in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia and said the Paris accord would’ve been a near extinction-level event for such operations. To be sure, a handful of new mines have surfaced in Appalachia, but they’re primarily the kind used to supply steelmakers, not polluting power plants. And by the end of last year, the nation’s mines still totaled one-seventh of what they were in the 1970s.