NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - The world s three biggest consumers of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, are getting ready to boost usage so much that it ll almost be as if the pandemic-induced drop in emissions never happened.
US power plants are going to consume 16 per cent more coal this year than in 2020, and then another 3 per cent in 2022, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last week. China and India, which together account for almost two-thirds of demand, have no plans to cut back in the near term.
This means higher emissions, a setback for climate action ahead of international talks this year intended to raise the level of ambition from commitments under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases.
Should Biden aim to cut US carbon emissions in half by 2030?
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Kern runs on oil : as California confronts climate crisis, one county is ready to drill
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SEVERAL SHOWY Hollywood blockbusters have imagined a world devastated by climate change. In “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004), the most famous example of a “cli-fi” disaster film, the planet is beset by superstorms, hurricanes and tsunamis. A paleoclimatologist must save his son as the globe is plunged into a new ice age. Environmental devastation is the backdrop to dystopian stories, too think of the desert world of “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2014, pictured), the smog-filled city-scapes of “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) or the icy tundra of “Snowpiercer” (2013). Climate change may also be the MacGuffin that forces characters to abandon Earth and seek a new home elsewhere, as in “Avatar” (2009) or “Interstellar” (2014).
“The target has to be ambitious enough to show US leadership, but also credible, it can’t just be plucked from thin air,” said Nat Keohane, vice-president for international climate at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “This is ambitious but also feasible. We need to show the US is bringing everything it can to this fight.”
A new EDF report calls for a “whole of government effort” to combat the climate crisis, with all cars sold in the US to be zero emissions from 2035, a clean electricity standard to shift the grid to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and new regulations to restrict methane emissions from oil and gas drilling.