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An enormous 259 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity are under development in China. That’s on top of the 993 gigawatts of coal-burning capacity China already possesses. In addition, they are building coal power stations around the world.
The UK’s whole electrical generation capacity, in all forms of power, is 85 gigawatts. If we gave up using electricity entirely, it would make no difference at all to the impact of Chinese coal burning on the atmosphere. None, not any, zero. If we completely abolished all our fossil-fuel generation, including gas, it would likewise not matter in the slightest, except to us, our economy and our standard of living.
China’s planned increase alone, in coal power is three times the size of our whole electricity-generation industry – wind, nuclear, gas, and all. India is also increasing coal generation and last March reached a coal capacity of 200 gigawatts.
Do you really think that people in Africa are going to give up the chance to have cheap access to electricity because of overprivileged middle class arseholes blocking the M25 and glueing themselves to the road surface?