The Chinese have a large air quality problem in their big cities, so they have announced that they will reduce their coal consumption share from its current 67 percent of consumption to 65 percent by 2017. However, since their energy use is increasing, this announcement is unlikely to reduce total coal consumption, but its recent tremendous rate of growth will likely be slower. For example, over the past 4 years, China’s coal consumption increased by 35 percent. But despite their announcement, don’t be fooled by this policy change because the country plans to use coal differently, which will result in even greater carbon dioxide emissions, not less.
