Old King Coal

Experts at the Cop26 meeting, agreed there was an urgent imperative to stop burning coal. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air has found, however, that the pledges and targets extracted in Glasgow, are wholly inadequate to prevent a climate crisis (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/dec/23/why-cop26-coal-power-pledges-dont-go-far-enough-visualised). The Cop26 pledges and targets, as they stand, are insufficient to ensure that coal power in phased out quickly enough. Unless countries move faster to abandon coal as an energy source, the worst ravages of global heating cannot be avoided. Added to the problem is the backsliding on pledges evident in countries like the UK and US. Coal was supposed to be the easiest hydrocarbon to deal with.