Tag - coal

 
 

COAL

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the signing ceremony for a coal mining executive order in the East Room of the White House on April 8, 2025.
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2026
Trump to direct Pentagon to buy coal in bid to revive industry
The move is expected to tap special Cold War-era authorities under the 1950 Defense Production Act that gives the White House sweeping power to direct private industry.
Participants pray for the victims of the 1942 underwater coal mine disaster off Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on Saturday during a memorial service held in the city.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2026
Diver dies in underwater coal mine survey in Japan
The diver was sent to the hospital but was confirmed dead, according to prefectural police.
In 2025, overlooked climate challenges included the warming effects of reduced pollution, stalled progress in green hydrogen and rising financing costs for renewables.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2025
Here’s the bad climate news you missed this year
The current renewables boom will need to prove those fossil plants superfluous, and quickly, if we want to stop them getting built.
Workers assemble new Nissan Leaf electric vehicles at a production facility in Sunderland, England, on Dec. 16.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2025
The positive climate news you may have missed this year
Much climate news is gloomy, but there are positive developments all the time — so many, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the things that have been happening.
Unmanned Chinese electric mining trucks at an open-pit coal mine in Yimin, China, in May
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2025
China confronts the cost of dismantling the world’s biggest coal sector
Coal has been closely tied to the Communist Party’s history and to its efforts to transform China’s economy over the past decades.
A coal-fired power plant in Shanghai. China’s on track for another year of record mine output.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Dec 10, 2025
Energy demand boom keeps Asia tethered to coal
Concerns over energy security and costs are trumping the climate agenda in the region’s high-growth, high-polluting economies.
COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago (center) hugs Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva after her speech at the COP30 U.N. climate change conference in Belem, Brazil, on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 23, 2025
COP30 climate deal a ‘win’ for global unity but fossil fuels untouched
Nearly 200 countries approved the deal by consensus after two weeks of exhaustive negotiations, with the notable absence of the U.S.
Indigenous people attend a protest to call for climate justice and territorial protection during the U.N. Climate Change Conference, in Belem, Brazil, on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Nov 20, 2025
As COP30 discusses end of fossil fuels, are renewables ready?
Although renewable power is expanding fast, the world is not on track to triple clean energy by 2030, a target set at COP28 in Dubai two years ago.
Chimney and cooling towers stand next to cranes at the construction site of Shenmu Shenxin power station, a coal-fired power plant, in Shenmu, Shaanxi province, China November 20, 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Nov 20, 2025
Decades-long contracts chain Asia to coal-fired power
Rising dependence on coal for power generation in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam is a major obstacle to global efforts to combat climate change.
Solar panels at the Gujarat Solar Park in Gujarat, India
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Oct 8, 2025
Global renewable power output overtakes coal for the first time, report says
Curbing coal power generation is regarded as vital by most scientists to meeting global climate targets.
Kansai Electric Power is preparing to decommission the No.1 and No. 2 units at its oil-fired Gobo thermal power station in Wakayama Prefecture, according to informed sources.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2025
Kansai Electric to retire two units at Gobo oil-fired power station
The two units are expected to be decommissioned around next June, sources said.
The coal-fired Hunter Power Plant in Castle Dale, Utah in 2024. A former U.S. climate envoy says President Donald Trump is leading the world "in the wrong direction" on climate and weaponizing clean energy as a culture war issue.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 18, 2025
Ex-U.S. climate envoy: Trump threatening ‘consensus science’ worldwide
John Podesta, former U.S. President Joe Biden’s senior point person on international climate policy, testified in a case challenging the administration’s fossil fuel agenda.
A water-based solar farm operated by the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group on the outskirts of Jiaxing, China, in 2018
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Sep 9, 2025
China’s green push may cut global fossil use by 2030, says think tank
“China’s surge in renewables and whole-economy electrification is rapidly reshaping energy choices for the rest of the world,” Ember said.
A worker wearing protective equipment walks near the Electric Arc Furnace at the 7 Steel facility in Cardiff, Wales, on July 18.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Aug 28, 2025
Sky-high electricity costs hindering the U.K.’s progress toward net zero
Energy bills have stripped firms of money to improve efficiency, deterred the shift to lower-carbon power sources and made wind-farm, pylon and battery production less competitive.
A child collects chunks of coal near the Duvha coal-based power station in Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga province, South Africa, in 2021.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 19, 2025
South Africa artisanal miners want stake in critical minerals boom
As the nation moves away from the planet-heating coal industries toward renewables, miners — both formal and informal — fear mass unemployment.
Gladstone, Australia, long reliant on fossil fuel exports, is now struggling to reinvent itself as the world shifts toward clean energy, with political uncertainty and economic challenges clouding its prospects.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2025
Cleaning up a giant coal and gas port isn’t easy
Gladstone is now one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel ports thanks to decades of voracious global demand for steelmaking coal and gas.
Xiaobaodang Coal Mine, in Shaanxi province, China, in 2023. China, which mines and burns half the world’s coal, is facing swelling inventories of the fuel.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 3, 2025
Coal’s four-year lows hide a coming global supply squeeze
Demand for the fuel continues to rise in India and China, outpacing breakneck rates of expansion in solar and wind.
The coal-powered Datang International Zhangjiakou Power Station in Zhangjiakou, in China's northern Hebei province. Many countries support an an aggressive approach to climate change, but face objections by some oil producers and major polluters with rising emissions, such as India and China.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 24, 2025
Nations at odds over major U.N. climate science report
Many countries support an an aggressive approach to climate change, but face objections by some oil producers and major polluters.
Bereaved family members join hands at a memorial service for the Chousei coal mine accident in Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture on Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2025
Victims of 1942 Yamaguchi underwater mine disaster remembered
The memorial event was held near the former site of the Chosei coal mine and was attended by about 450 people.
An oil drilling rig in Midland, Texas, on March 2, 2023
WORLD / Politics
Jan 27, 2025
Trump seizes wartime powers in battle for more fossil fuels
By invoking the country’s national and economic security, the plan lays the foundation for energy projects to move forward with unprecedented speed.

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The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival