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Opinion
The Editors

China and Japan Should Stop Promoting Coal

The Covid-19 slump is no reason to support projects that will make climate change worse. 

China has approved more new capacity in 2020 than the last two years combined.

China has approved more new capacity in 2020 than the last two years combined.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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Few nations can spare a thought for anything right now except battling the Covid-19 pandemic and mitigating its economic fallout. But it’s essential that their rescue efforts don’t add to an even bigger global danger: climate change. The governments of China and Japan, especially, need to keep this in mind.

By continuing to fund new coal projects at home and abroad, Asia’s two largest economies threaten to doom any chance of slowing global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.