Coal Is the Climate Scourge That Just Won't Go Away
Everyone agrees it’s the worst of the fossil fuels, but no one wants to pay the price to kick the habit.
Countries like Vietnam are having trouble quitting coal.
Photographer: STR/AFP/Getty Images
It’s nearly impossible to get every country in the world to agree on anything. But at the latest United Nations climate talks, leaders representing all the people of Earth held hands and sang in perfect harmony of their shared belief that coal is the absolute worst.
And yet too many of them still can’t seem to get enough of the one fossil fuel that makes oil look like a slacker when it comes to ruining the atmosphere for human habitation. It’s a grim reminder that transitioning the global economy to clean energy will be hard, and exorbitantly expensive, and that wealthier nations must share much more of the burden than they have so far.