by Eric Worrall
h/t Viv Forbes; Who could have imagined the possibility Chinese President Xi Jinping’s climate rhetoric does not exactly accord with what is happening on the ground?
China’s 2020 coal output rises to highest since 2015, undermining climate pledges
CONTRIBUTORS
Muyu Xu Reuters
Shivani Singh Reuters
PUBLISHED JAN 17, 2021 11:22PM ESTBEIJING, Jan 18 (Reuters) – China’s coal output rose last year to its highest since 2015, despite Beijing’s climate change pledge to reduce consumption of the dirty fossil fuel and months of disruption at major coal mining hubs.
The world’s biggest coal miner and consumer produced 3.84 billion tonnes of coal in 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday.
China’s coal output dropped after reaching a peak of 3.97 billion tonnes in 2013, as Beijing axed excessive mining capacity and promoted clean energy consumption. But production is rising amid surging industrial demand and an unofficial restriction on coal imports aimed at shoring up the domestic mining industry.
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No doubt this is a temporary aberration, right? I’m sure once global warming clears the ice hanging off China’s wind turbines, they’ll be able to cut back on their coal use.
