Coal’s Last Refuge Crumbles With China’s Renewables Plan
Beijing’s latest energy policy will sharply increase wind and solar, but can’t save the climate on its own.
Solar panels being installed on a rooftop in Wuhan.
Photographer: Kevin Frayer/Getty
Coal-fired power has been dying everywhere except where it poses the greatest threat.
Draw a line down the world around the longitude of the Nile. The region to the west — encompassing Europe, Africa and the Americas — has seen coal consumption drop by a quarter over the past decade. In the U.S., demand fell 43% on an energy-equivalent basis between 2009 and 2019, according to BP Plc’s latest statistical review of energy. In Europe, it slipped 23%. The U.K., cradle of the coal-fired industrial revolution, saw a 79% decline that has left its few remaining thermal plants barely operating since spring.