What will it solve if Australian coal stays underground? | Graph IEA

If Australia stops digging up clean high energy coal, hands up who thinks Indonesia, Russia, India or China will cut back too? Anyone?

Australia is stopping the world from digging up more dirty coal.

To lower greenhouse gas emissions — burn more Australian coal

But it’s never been about carbon dioxide…

Abolish our coal industry? Tell ’em they’re dreaming

Greg Sheridan, The Australian

Australia is typically the second biggest exporter of coal. But we are not the dominant producer of coal. Australia produces only about 6 per cent of the world’s coal. China produces about 50 per cent of coal globally.

Most nations that use coal have some coal of their own. Australia, with such a small population of 26 million, exports most of its coal. Our biggest coal export competitors are Indonesia, Russia, Colombia and South Africa.

In the event that we were self-destructive enough to abolish our coal industry, global coal use would not decline. Our export markets would be taken by Indonesia, Russia and so on. Countries such as China and India would be forced […]