China’s Thirst for Coal Is Drying Up“China’s coal boom is over, with demand falling faster than expected … The latest data from China’s National Coal Association suggests that while China burned 940 million tonnes of coal in the first quarter of 2014, that’s only a 0.9 percent increase from last year, down from a 9.8 percent increase in 2011. As this trend continues, China’s peak coal consumption is looming ever closer, and the decline of coal consumption is just around the corner,” write Fang Lifeng, Senior Campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia and Justin Guay, Associate Director of the Sierra Club’s International Climate Program. Suggested Tweet: Peak #China #coal consumption looms as data shows growth in first 4 months of 2014 0.9% vs 9.8% in 2011 http://huff.to/1sSf6Dg #coalisover Turkey’s Soma mine disaster and the need for a plan to quit coal“The worst coal mining disaster of the 21st century happened in Manisa, Soma on 13th of May 2014. This tragedy, where hundreds of coal miners lost their lives showed us once again that as long as the coal continues to be burned, it hurts us at all stages from mining to air pollution, causing thousands of deaths. The tragedy, which the responsible company declared as an unseen and unexplained accident is actually a result of the profit focused policies in the energy market. Our real question here today is not the reason of this tragedy but why these deaths happened,” writes Greenpeace Turkey. |