Coal Comes Back To China 

A sharp surge in demand in electricity in Shandong, Henan, Hunan, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces of China has led to a re-appearance of coal-fired power plants, according to this report, and confirmed by satellite photography.  Regulators are quietly giving coal the nod, both to new construction as well as to the re-commissioning of formerly shuttered plants.  

This is nothing but a reminder of an all-important fact: all of humankind is in this together.  A clean energy solution that doesn’t work for places like China and India is not a solution at all.

The real complication here is that this “coming together” is something that our civilization really doesn’t do well; in fact, we don’t do it at all.  There is no precedent whatsoever for our achieving international cooperation on anything like the scale required to deal with climate change and the other environmental catastrophes that are unfolding around us.

This is precisely why the Paris Accord is so instrumental, and America’s refusal to participate in it so morally reprehensible.  In its current form, it has no teeth; there are no mechanisms to enforce emissions reductions.  Its main significance is that it represents a symbol of cooperation–and even that’s to much for “America First.”