SO MUCH FOR COAL BEING DEAD IN THE WATER10 Jan 2021 11:36
China are looking to stop using it by 2060 ..really fecking hell why bother?..seems to me China as bo solutions replacing coal ...Chinese Cities Go Dark Amid Energy Spat With Australia
By Haley Zaremba - Jan 09, 2021, 12:00 PM CST
Despite all of China’s aggressive efforts to shore up their energy autonomy over the course of this year, the precariousness of Beijing’s energy security has been thrown into the spotlight in recent weeks as the country is plagued by severe energy shortages in the wake of an unofficial blacklisting of Australian coal. As China scrambles to ration electricity for millions of citizens, entire cities have reportedly gone dark. This latest development is just another chapter in a lengthier saga of rising tensions and failed diplomacy between China and Australia. “Relations between the two nations soured last year after Australia supported an international inquiry into China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic,” CNBC reports. While Beijing’s Australian coal boycott is dominating headlines and wreaking the most havoc in China, coal is just one import on a much longer list of Australian goods that China is targeting in this unofficial geopolitical standoff.
China is the single biggest coal consumer in the world, and Australia has been one of Beijing’s biggest suppliers. Even though China has recently pledged to curb the nation’s hefty carbon footprint and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, the world’s second largest economy continues to rely heavily on coal. The sudden stop to the flow of the fossil fuel into China has caused coal prices to shoot through the roof at the very same time that the country is experiencing a cold snap, causing the demand for coal to rise to even higher numbers than usual. This double whammy has created “chaos” in Chinese markets according to the Financial Review. “The protectionist policy has ensured coal prices inside China have been dramatically higher than outside the country for more than six months now, and in early December the Chinese government stopped the nation's four big coal price indexes from publishing daily prices,” the news outlet reported on Wednesday.