Retreat from the Rock: How a Pullback in Coal Lending by China, Korea, and the United States Could Change Geopolitics and the Climate

Details

Author(s):
Publish Date:
December 7, 2020
Publication Title:
East Asia Institute [EAI]
Format:
Working Paper
Citation(s):
  • Jeffrey Ball, Retreat from the Rock: How a Pullback in Coal Lending by China, Korea, and the United States Could Change Geopolitics and the Climate, East Asia Institute [EAI] Working Paper, December 7, 2020.
Related Organization(s):

Abstract

From the concluding paragraph:

If a truly low-carbon world is to materialize, the politically powerful who have profited from the coal sector will have to support the shift. Many of these behemoths have themselves begun diversifying into selling lower-carbon-energy technologies, including solar and wind, persuaded that diversification will decide their survival. But they, like the world, are just beginning their clean-energy shift. For a company, as for a country, it is one thing to make grand pronouncements about ending emissions three decades from now, a point at which today’s executives and policymakers will be long gone from the scene. It is quite another to hammer out a realistic plan for the transition — one with intermediate targets that are both achievable and sufficiently ambitious, and one backed by enough money, to make the environmental goal more than a political smokescreen.