China’s coal production reached record levels last year as the state encouraged miners to ramp up their fossil fuel output to safeguard the country’s energy supplies through the winter gas crisis.
Chinese coal production climbed to an all-time high of 4.07 billion tonnes in 2021, up 4.7% on the previous year.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that global consumption of coal power, which is the world’s single biggest source of carbon emissions, would reach record levels in 2021.
The IEA’s most recent report, published last week, found the steepest ever increase in global electricity demand last year was stoked by a 9% increase in coal use compared with the year before, or more than half of the global increase in power demand.