India And China Coal Use Staggeringly High
While the UK has just shut its last coal plant after 140 years of electricity generation, the use of coal by two of the three largest polluting nations remains exceptionally high. The UK was able to break away from coal because of gas, renewable energy, and nuclear, according to Semafor,
Coal is still used to create 60% of the electricity in China. While that is down from 80% about 15 years ago, China is the world’s largest nation, and air pollution remains staggeringly high. The same is true of India, which has a population that rivals China’s, and its coal use is 75%, which is rising. Once again, the grass gas emissions from India are tremendous. “The country’s emissions grew faster than GDP, at slightly more than 7%, rising around 190 Mt to reach 2.8 Gt., according to Google AI.
China And India
Between China and India, the effects of global warming are almost impossible to reverse. They have not built out alternative energy sources at anywhere near the level they need to,
UK Good News, Not
The UK news is good, as is the news that US coal use is falling. In 1985, the percentage of electricity produced by coal in the US was over 70%, much the same as China’s and India’s. That has fallen below 20%. Nevertheless, the US drop will not have a material effect on global coal emissions without similar reductions from China and India.
The UK has set a milestone. Other large world economies have not.
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