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TOKYO, Feb 5(Reuters) - Japanese trading houses are speeding up their efforts to shift away from coal and other fossil fuel assets amid a growing decarbonisation push worldwide and to match an ambitious pledge by government of becoming a carbon neutral by 2050.
The move comes as the trading houses are re-thinking their long-term strategies around upstream investment, Wood Mackenzie Asia Pacific Vice Chair Gavin Thompson, said in a recent note.
“If 2020 was a year for the re-evaluation of future plans, then 2021 looks to be the year of implementation,” he said.
For example, Itochu said on Thursday it will offload its stake in a Colombian coal mine, shedding 80% of its thermal coal assets, and will sell the remaining stake in two Australian mines “as soon as possible.”
Exports to China climb despite trade disputes Coal shipments more than recover from Beijing ban
SYDNEY, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Australia’s trade surplus rose to a six-month high in December as iron ore exports to China easily weathered diplomatic squalls between the two countries, while coal shipments found new buyers beyond the world’s second-largest economy.
China’s reliance on steel-intensive infrastructure and construction to sustain economic growth means it has little choice but to keep importing Australian iron ore, even as prices for the mineral hit multi-year highs.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics out on Thursday showed goods exports to China jumped 21% in December to a six-month high of A$13.3 billion, with iron ore up sharply by both value and volume.
3 Feb 2021
A joint report released Wednesday by the U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found China built over three times as much coal-fired electrical power capacity in 2020 as the rest of the world combined.
As Voice of America News (VOA) delicately observed, this tremendous surge of coal-burning power plants, which are ostensibly one of the worst sources of global warming emissions, would seem to “undermine” China’s loudly declared “short-term climate goals” and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s promises to make his country “carbon-neutral” by 2060.
The GEM/CREA report found China’s coal power capacity grew by a net 28.8 gigawatts. China built coal plants at such a frantic pace, to provide cheap power for its swelling industrial capacity, that some of its coal plants might never repay their construction and maintenance costs:
High Court orders fresh hearings into approvals for New Acland coal mine expansion
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The New Hope Group has waited for stage 3 approval for 13 years.
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The High Court has ordered fresh hearings into the planned expansion of a controversial coal mine on Queensland s Darling Downs, potentially putting a halt to the project.
Key points:
A group of Darling Downs landholders win their appeal against the planned expansion of the New Acland coal mine
The mine s owners, New Hope Group, has been seeking approvals for the mine since 2007
The case will be sent back to the Queensland Land Court for fresh hearings
China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.