Fading Coal Industry in China May Offer Chance to Aid Climate

Across China’s grimy coal heartland, mines have fallen silent, reduced production or shut down. Miners, owners and officials here wonder whether boom times will return for the “black gold” that has fed the nation’s craving for cheap but dirty energy. “I think it’s finished,” said Wang Jinwang, a longtime miner whose salary has been cut by one-fifth. China’s coal consumption weakened last year and through the first half of this year, largely because of a slowing economy, according to statistics from China’s largest coal industry analysis group. Read more