Because they want to pump the atmosphere with as much crap as they can before the PEAK of 2026. It’s cheap and dependable. Renewables are intermittent, something also avoided in discussion
Why China is still clinging to coal
China built the majority of the coal plants completed in 2020, and also accounted for 85 percent of the world’s new coal plant proposals, according to a report out Monday by Global Energy Monitor, an environmental research and advocacy group. That means instead of transitioning away from coal power — the source of nearly 40 percent of China’s carbon emissions — it is doubling down.
And due in large part to China, global coal power capacity under development increased for the first time since 2015.
At the same time, the EU and US are retiring coal plants rapidly as renewables, natural gas, and climate regulations make them less competitive, but they still need to speed up retirements in the coming years.According to a 2018 reportby Greenpeace and the Global Energy Monitor, OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member countries have to phase out coal completely by 2030 to stay in line with the Paris climate agreement goal to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The US and the EU — the world’s largest historical emitters — are not on track to retire their coal plants by that deadline.
