The West, through different phases, has been trying to deindustrialize and impose the removal of fossil fuels through the Green Financial Initiative, the Green New Deal, etc. China, meanwhile, is building coal-fired plants domestically and globally.
On the India Climate Dialogue website, on June 12, Alison Kirsch, who identifies herself as the lead researcher on Rainforest Action Network’s Climate and Energy Program, is the lead co-author of an article that attacks China for developing coal. She cites the recent Banking on Climate Change 2020 report, drafted by bankers and greens, which “found that 26 of 35 major global banks analysed now have policies restricting coal finance.”
But not banks from China. Citing the report Kirsch found that four major Chinese banks included in the study—Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and China Construction Bank together, “make up 51% of financing to 30 top coal power [utility] companies globally from 2016-2019, and 67% of financing to top coal mining companies.” Further, “this result might not be so surprising given that China houses over half of the world’s coal power plant fleet and is a major coal producer.
Meanwhile, Quartz magazine upbraids China, displaying a chart in which shows that of the coal plants that are being built outside of China, 72% are bankrolled by China (South Korea and Japan are second and third in terms of financing coal plants globally). Quartz scolds that, “60 new coal plants across Eurasia, South America, and Africa—totaling an additional 70.3 Gigawatts—are financed almost exclusively by Chinese banks. If built, they would emit about as much carbon dioxide as all of Spain: 276 megatons per year.”
China’s financing would seem to reflect an understanding that coal is necessary to keep industry and electricity generation moving forward in the “advanced” sector and developing world, until the world transitions to a fission- and fusion-based economy. [ref]
