Coal-fired power plants are proving hard to shut down in developing economies because they are cheap and convenient, but keeping them going is pumping out carbon dioxide at a rate far beyond the level needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Coal, which is being phased out of the power system in many industrialized nations, is still a vital fuel for generation in many developing economies and may remain so for decades to come. Countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a grouping of mainly industrialized nations, accounted for 80% of worldwide coal consumption in 2019, the last year before the pandemic, BP’s annual energy report says. (“Statistical review of world energy”, 2021) If emissions from coal combustion are […]