The world’s biggest coal producer and consumer mined 384.67 million tonnes of the fossil fuel last month, easily topping its previous record of 370.84 million tonnes set in November last year, after the government called for miners to work at maximum capacity to help fuel the country’s economic growth.
Official government figures show that China’s coal binge also spurred the country to record-high coal output over the year as a whole. Chinese coal production climbed to an all-time high of 4.07 billion tonnes, up 4.7 percent on the previous year, in a blow to climate campaigners months after the UN’s COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that global consumption of coal power, which is the world’s single biggest source of climate emissions, would reach record levels last year driven by a surge in demand for energy to kick-start global economies following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: Reuters
Coal power fell by 4 percent in 2020 as the pandemic caused a global economic slowdown, but the IEA found that the surge in demand for electricity during last year outpaced the growth in low-carbon sources, leading many wealthy economies to rely more heavily on fossil-fuel power plants.
The IEA’s most recent report, published last week, found that the steepest-ever increase in global electricity demand last year was stoked by a 9 percent increase in coal use compared with the year before, or more than half of the global increase in power demand, to reach an all-time peak.
China’s record coal consumption comes weeks after the conclusion of the COP26 climate talks, which ended in a fierce disagreement over a pledge to abandon coal.
A last-minute intervention by India watered down the language of the pact from “phasing out” to “phasing down.”
After the talks, held last month, COP26 president Alok Sharma said India and China would “have to explain themselves to poor nations” after watering down the Glasgow climate pact, adding that their actions had left him “deeply frustrated.”
The IEA found that coal plants in the US and the EU produced 20 percent more electricity last year, from low levels in 2020, but their use remained below the levels recorded in 2019.
The reliance on coal plants is expected to decline again next year as electricity demand slows and the expansion of renewable energy alternatives continues.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in