Tag: Coal

More Than 50 Missing After Coal Mine Collapses in Northern China

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Rescuers in northern China were working on Thursday to save 53 coal miners who were missing after the collapse of an open-pit mine. At least four deaths had been confirmed, local officials and state media said. Footage released by CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, showed what appeared to be the moment of the collapse on Wednesday afternoon. As a stream of workers, seen from a distance, are wending through a narrow basin, a landslide occurs, blanketing the area with rock and sand and obscuring the miners from view. More than…

Australian coal industry says China market matters less than before, even if import ban ends

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Australia would benefit from a lifting of China’s ban on its coal but any gains would likely be modest as miners have largely redirected supplies elsewhere, analysts said. Shares of ASX-listed coalminers shot up on Wednesday after reports China was considering lifting its restrictions on coal imports from Australia from April. The ban was imposed in mid-2020 amid deteriorating bilateral relations that have since begun to improve. Investors pared back their expectations of a significant boon for exporters on Thursday. Whitehaven Coal shares were down almost 2.5% in early afternoon…

Biden and Xi Break the Ice

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The leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies are meeting this week in Indonesia. What they decide will go a long way toward shaping the global climate of the near future — and with it, the destiny of us all. The Group of 20 represents 80 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet. The main headline: China and the U.S. are back on speaking terms. The White House announced that the United States and China would resume their climate talks. The news came after a three-and-a-half hour meeting…

China Is Burning More Coal, a Growing Climate Challenge

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China is poised to take advantage of the global urgency to tackle climate change. It is the world’s dominant manufacturer and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It leads the world in producing energy from hydroelectric dams and is building more nuclear power plants than any other country. But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and has accelerated mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants, driving up the country’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases nearly 6 percent last year, the fastest pace…

Lady of the Gobi: trucking coal across the desert to China

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On Mongolia’s coal highway to the Chinese border, truck driver Maikhuu dreams of a better life and financial security for her three children. However, the road from the mines to China is riddled with accidents, toxic pollution, poor hygiene and now,  amid the Covid crisis, drivers face days of quarantine on the border. Trapped in a hazardous industry, Maikhuu’s journey reflects the human and environmental costs of Mongolia’s mining boom The Guardian

China says relationship with Australia ready to ‘set sail again’ amid hopes coal import ban will be scrapped

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Australia’s relationship with China can “set sail again”, the Chinese government says, as it reportedly considers scrapping a ban on Australian coal exports. China put trade sanctions on Australian coal – and a range of other exports – in 2020. Last week, Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, met with her Chinese counterpart, describing the meeting as a “first step” towards resetting the antagonistic relationship. The Australian trade minister, Don Farrell, has suggested a compromise on trade disputes might be possible. Bloomberg has reported that Chinese bureaucrats are set to…

Chinese premier calls for more coal production as electricity demand soars

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China’s premier has called for increased production of coal to stave off mass blackouts, as early summer heatwaves have prompted record electricity usage. On Friday authorities again issued high temperature warnings for about a dozen provinces across the central and northern provinces, after consecutive days in the high 30s. As people sought to escape the heat this week, state media reported that electricity demand was up 8.8% in north-west China compared with last year, and 3.2% in northern China, citing the State Grid Corp of China. Records for maximum electricity…

China doubles down on coal

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3. No one likes power cuts, least of all authoritarian governments. Many Chinese provinces ran critically short of electricity last fall. Factories suddenly went silent. High-rise office buildings had to be evacuated before their elevators stopped. Chemical factories lost power and, with it, their ability to control the heat and pressure in potentially hazardous operations. In March, President Xi Jinping underlined that he would not let his country turn away from coal without making sure that reliable replacements were in place. “You can’t throw away the eating utensils in your…

China urges developed countries to take the lead in cutting out coal

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As Cop26 drew to a close over the weekend, Chinese media highlighted Beijing’s contribution over the last fortnight in Glasgow. “The Chinese delegation took a constructive attitude, actively communicated and negotiated with all parties,” said CCTV’s main evening news bulletin on Sunday. “[It] provided China’s wisdom and China’s solution …” But when China and India chose the last few hours of negotiations to push for the language on coal to be diluted from “phase out” to “phase down”, both countries came under nearly immediate fire from commentators. Cop president Alok…

With COP26, China’s Climate Policy Merits a Closer Look

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“Disappointing.” “A shadow on the global climate effort.” Even before the global climate summit in Glasgow got underway last week, environmental advocates were quick to point fingers at China’s seemingly lackluster “new” climate pledge as a harbinger of a doomed outcome for the event. Since China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, some climate watchers had hoped Beijing would make a big splash with its updated targets to fight climate change — like providing an earlier-than-2030 peak emissions year or a hard cap on coal consumption. But the…