China alone consumes more coal than the rest of the world combined, with India, Indonesia, and Vietnam not far behind. finews.asia looks at it all in the context of a record-breaking summer heatwave.
Records are being set the world over. The 4th of July was ostensibly the hottest day ever on record, with some of the more alarmist media of the world, such as «Vox» (no paywall), claiming this summer will be as cool as things are likely to get from here on out.
Things don’t look all that much better regionally here in Asia. China also had a record-breaking heatwave in July leading to record levels of electricity production, according to «CNN» (no paywall).
The thing about it all is that much of what powers all those fans and air conditioners through the sweat-laden summer is coal, particularly in China. In fact, the country consumed more than 2 billion tonnes of the commodity in 2022, more than the rest of the world combined, according to data from the «Visual Digest» (no paywall).
Targets in Question
But just like the chugging of a clunky, outdated ceiling unit in an open-faced Hong Kong convenience store bar discharging chilled air randomly onto the street, all this is seemingly very at odds with the world’s ambitious net zero targets.
Even though they are now taken as unquestioned dogma in Switzerland, they are not in much of the rest of the world, and Asia. Four of the top five countries in the world most reliant on coal are here in the region.
After South Africa, China is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. More than half of its needs come from coal, almost one-fifth from oil, and another tenth from gas. Other sources of energy make up less than one-fifth of its production.
List of Shame
India, coming in third, is just as reliant on coal as China, although it is more dependent on oil, which accounts for more than a quarter of its needs, with just a little more than one-tenth of its needs coming from other sources.
India is followed by Indonesia and Vietnam. Other entries in this environmental list of shame include the Philippines in seventh, followed by eighth-ranked Japan, and 9th-placed Australia, with South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand bringing up the rear at 11th, 13th, and 15th respectively.
The world’s former poster boys for coal dependency, speak the US, Italy, the UK, and France, now round up the bottom of the rankings, although they still rely on oil and gas for at least 40 percent of their total consumption, which means that they are no environmental angels per se.
Indifferent Investors
Moreover, investors are unlikely to help much, as finews.asia previously commented, given that they are apparently only willing to pay a roughly 1 basis point premium for green bonds when compared with conventional bonds of a similar nature.
The United Nations is not all that much more positive about the current situation, flatly stating that commitments by governments «to date fall far short of what is required».
What can help at this point? Maybe, as «Vox» indicates, a series of increasingly common but extreme heat waves the world over in coming years. It may be the only thing that finally prompts governments, including here in Asia, to take the necessary action and make sure that the current targets amount to something more than a pipe dream.
