Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and thermal coal prices in Asia have been roaring ahead in recent months amid strong demand, but while welcome news for the commodity producers, the rally is a longer-term boon to their main rival, renewable energy.
China has sent officials to inspect coal inventories and crack down on illicit hoarding at ports, following a surge of physical coal prices and tight supplies in the market ahead of the peak consumption season.
South Africa's monthly manufacturing output contracted in April and mining production slowed, as electricity outages hit the strong recovery in economic activity seen earlier in the year.
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BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Investment in clean energy in emerging and developing economies needs to rise by more than seven times, topping $1 trillion per year by 2030, to put the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.
In a report carried out with the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, the IEA said that, without far stronger action, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from those economies – mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America – would grow by 5 billion tonnes over the next two decades.
By contrast, carbon emissions are projected to fall by 2 billion tonnes in advanced economies and plateau in China.
The world's coal producers are currently planning as many as 432 new mine projects with 2.28 billion tonnes of annual output capacity, research published on Thursday showed, putting targets for slowing global climate change at risk.