The connection is whilst lithium grows along with battery...

The connection is whilst lithium grows along with battery storage and solar cells we will need less power generation, coal will not be needed for power generation in the foreseeable future. Why would you mine that dirty stuff, haul it to ships, transport it to China " burning fuel all the way" and the put it into a furnace to burn it. The economics of it are a joke.
Petrol is the same, you would never buy a 20 litre tank of fuel and just pour it down the drain but its perfectly fine to burn it and release the poisonous gas. We are all going to have to pay for this absurdity in the future.
I think there is going to be a legal backlash the likes you have never seen before for some of these companies that profit from wrecking our atmosphere. You can forget about insurance companies providing insurance to coal miners, Suncorp has all ready said it will not insure coal mines https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/26/insurance-giant-suncorp-says-it-will-no-longer-cover-new-thermal-coal-projects .
So the writing is on the wall, sure there is still money to be made by these dinosaurs but i would be watching very closely as the time will come when many will go out of business.