Climate targets were yesterday: India and China produce 700 million tons more coal

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Coal is back. Increasingly frowned upon in recent years because it is considered “unclean” for power generation, it is now coming back into focus. And why? Prices for oil and natural gas are rising so sharply due to Western sanctions against Russia and speculation on the markets that lignite and hard coal are once again becoming extremely attractive for power generation.

China, for example, already declared in April that it would increase coal production by a full 300 million tons this year. As early as next year, annual output is to be increased to a total of 4.4 billion tons.

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Last year, around 30 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plant capacity were created in China. This new capacity more than offsets the 17 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants that were closed in the rest of the world last year. In addition, nearly 250 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants are under construction in China.

Beijing was never serious about abandoning coal, environmental promises are abandoned like any other.
https://t.co/BZtYx7ilBI via @AndrewSErickson

— Michael Ron Bowling (@mrbcyber) June 9, 2022

And India? The world’s largest democracy plans to increase coal production by a total of 400 million tons this year. By comparison, in the last fiscal year (which ended at the end of March), the country produced a total of 777 million tons of coal.

We are thus talking about an increase in production of more than 50 percent within one year. Even though New Delhi is also pushing ahead with renewable energies, the country of 1.4 billion people cannot avoid continuing to meet its rapidly growing energy needs conventionally.

But imports (mainly from Indonesia, Australia, and South Africa) are becoming too expensive, so domestic mining is being pushed. So together, India and China are increasing coal production by an amount greater than the United States pulls out of the ground in total each year – that’s 600 million tons.

The Greens in Europe, who are pushing sanctions against oil and gas from Russia, is thus proving to be one of the driving forces of this energy crisis, which will eventually throw all “climate targets” into the dustbin of history.

With the sanction frenzy and the accompanying price explosions for oil and gas, the European Greens are also ensuring that poorer countries, in particular, are increasingly turning to energy resources that are frowned upon (by climate fanatics), such as coal, in order to be able to cover their energy needs at affordable prices.

India Reopens 100 Coal Mines https://t.co/OGEiORCc3x

— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) June 8, 2022

After all, every kilogram of coal releases around 2.4 kilograms of CO2 (as the carbon combines with oxygen). In other words, 700 million more tons of coal being burned will result in about 1.7 billion more tons of CO2.

This means that purely with the additional coal mined, India and China will already be blowing 2.2 times as much CO2 into the air as e.g. Germany produced in the entire year 2021 (namely 762 million tons) in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the German government.

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