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China Burns Half of World’s Coal
A thermal power plant discharges heavy smog into the air in Changchun, northeast China’s Jilin province. (AFP/Getty Images)
China has been using more coal every year in an upward trend of 12 years; in the last year alone its coal use grew by 325 million tons.
The global coal demand has been growing. Yet since 2000, China accounts for 2.3 billion of the 2.9 billion tons of growth.
China now accounts for 47% of global coal consumption—almost as much as the entire restof the world combined,”according to new data from the U.S Energy Information Administration.
China became the world’s largest energy consumer in 2011, but the country uses mainly coal, unlike the U.S., which it surpassed.
In a likely related scenario, Beijing became so polluted recently that residents were warned to stay inside.
Greenpeace recently said that China’s coal production expansion plans—the five northwestern provinces alone are pegged to increase production by 620 million tons by 2015—“is the biggest dirty-energy project on the planet,” and that coal is responsible for 500,000 premature deaths in China every year.
Furthermore, out of nearly 1,200 coal plants being proposed around the world, 363 would be in China, only outnumbered by India.
“Not all of these projects will necessarily be approved and developed—the report only looks at proposed new plants,” says Ailun Wang, think tank fellow for WRI. “However, this research shows a significant—and troubling—interest in coal development globally.”
But the situation is much more dire for China.
“The country created an economic miracle by relying on coal as its primary energy source,” Wang continues. “However, China has been paying a huge price for its coal dependence in the form of increasing public health concerns, deteriorating ecosystems, poor air quality, more carbon pollution, and growing social tensions.”
People sort coal out of waste stones in China, Jin Hua Gong Mine. (LHOON/Flickr)
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