Even so, coal use is still rising in absolute terms. Output from thermal power plants increased in the first half as electricity demand grew, partly driven by high-tech manufacturing, electric-vehicle charging and data centers. Coal’s share fell as cleaner sources expanded even faster.

So things are still getting worse, just not at the rate that they would have.

That’s capitalism, always have to expand to stay succesful. China produces what the rest of the world demands.

I suppose standard of living and power consumption per-capita are correlated. At least they’re making an effort to be better citizens of Earth instead of externalizing the all the costs.

Sure. I’m not heaping on the Chinese. But we mustn’t allow ourselves to think that this is all solved now. Emissions are still increasing. There is still a lot of work to do.

I totally doubt this, china love juking their numbers.

Isn’t this fairly verifiable via satellite imagery though?

I would love to see those photos and the data. china/ccp lies all the time, its their default setting. Country has the highest co2 emissions of the entire world. even if this was true they are still the worst polluter.

Ever been to china? Its a mess, mao really fucked up a great country in my opinion. I love china, the people are so nice, I have stories for days on the great times I had there. But FUCK the ccp.

How would satellite images show how much coal is being used or how much power is generated by anything?

Because satellites can track gasses and what not.

Yup. And here’s some more to back you up. There are several satellites whose sole purpose are tracking greenhouse gas emissions.

Japan has GOSAT (Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite) and GOSAT2 en.wikipedia.org/…/Greenhouse_Gases_Observing_Sat…

NASA has Tanager-1 nasa.gov/…/nasa-designed-greenhouse-gas-detection…

And two CO2 mappers along with a dedicated methane mapper.

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5332/

The ESA has Sentinel-5P esa.int/…/Satellites_providing_clear_picture_of_g…

There’s also MethaneSat that tracks methane emissions. www.methanesat.org/satellite

And GHGSat which tracks industrial emissions. www.ghgsat.com/en/technology/constellation/

As others have pointed out, it’s not that coal use is decreasing, in fact, it is increasing. It’s that other sources are growing much faster. They don’t have to “juke” the numbers, just lie with statistics.

Unless their increasing demand for energy is infinite clean energy will outpace coal at this rate and even absolute coal usage will decrease soon.

Probably true. It is the global trend. Although they may follow the same curve as the US, despite booming renewables, coal is being replaced with Natural Gas more than solar and wind. That’s more for political reasons though. Solar and wind continue to get cheaper, and grid storage is finally starting to pan out.

China is smart enough to not be dependent on sources they do not control. The US has leverage over the Gulf but China has nowhere near it. That is why they are so bullish on renewables.

hopefully China will reach soon enough the tipping point where the increase of energy demand will be covered from new renewables, nuclear and storage. From that point on there will be no need for any new hydrocarbon burning energy producers. The next step will start when the price of coa, oill and gas production will be very expensive for the system, so the existing ones will gradually be phased out.