{"id":71945,"date":"2021-06-02T15:14:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T15:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadialogue.net\/?p=71945"},"modified":"2021-06-02T15:15:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T15:15:12","slug":"foreign-money-in-chinas-booming-coal-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/energy\/foreign-money-in-chinas-booming-coal-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"The foreign money in China\u2019s booming coal industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At President Biden\u2019s climate summit<\/a> in April all parties agreed that everyone must pull together to mitigate climate change. At a national level, China seems to be playing its part. Its State Council introduced a plan<\/a> for responding to climate change in 2007 and in 2020, President Xi announced that China will be carbon neutral by 2060. During the recent summit, Xi even pledged China\u2019s coal consumption will peak in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But China\u2019s booming coal industry runs against the grain. Burning coal is still the largest source of global CO2 and is responsible for about one-third of the temperature increase<\/a> so far. Coal accounts for about 60% of China\u2019s current electricity consumption, and with over 1,000 gigawatts (GW), China operates half of the world\u2019s coal-fired power plants. In 2020, the country commissioned<\/a> another 38.4 GW of coal-fired capacity. A further 246.8 GW<\/a> is either planned or under construction, representing 49% of global coal-fired power plants under development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One-tenth of the money invested in the Chinese coal sector in the last two years has come from abroad<\/blockquote><\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There is a common belief that the west is unable to change anything in China and has nothing to do with the direction of China\u2019s energy production. That is wrong. It is fairly well known that China is the EU\u2019s largest trading partner and that many of the goods sold in Europe are produced with Chinese coal power. Less obvious are the global financial flows: even though China\u2019s coal companies are mainly domestically funded, foreign financiers also support the country\u2019s coal industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, over 460 international financial institutions have financed Chinese companies listed on the Global Coal Exit List<\/a> (GCEL), a database compiled by German non-profit environmental organisation Urgewald. The GCEL currently lists 935 companies active in the coal sector. So everyone is pulling together, but unfortunately in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One-tenth of the money invested in the Chinese coal sector in the last two years has come from abroad with 48 international banks providing a total of US$21.7 billion. The lion\u2019s share of this sum was provided by issuing shares and bonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UK and the US are by far the largest foreign financiers. English banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered have lent $5 billion and US banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup follow closely behind with $4.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banks from Japan, Switzerland and France have also sunk over $2 billion each into the Chinese coal sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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