24 March 2023
According to a new report released this week, China approved more coal power plants last year than it had in any of the previous seven years—amounting to the equivalent of two new coal plants per week. The report, published by Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, reveals that in 2022, China approved four times as much new coal power capacity as it did in 2021. This surge comes even as the country’s renewable energy sector experiences rapid growth.
That’s despite the fact that much of the world is getting off coal, says Flora Champenois, coal research analyst at Global Energy Monitor and one of the co-authors of the report.
“Everybody else is moving away from coal and China seems to be stepping on the gas,” she says. “We saw that China has six times as much plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.
