The new IEA Electricity Report for 2024 shows what I’ve been saying for ages. The fact that China’s building more coal power plants is not an indication that they’re increasing coal consumption - quite the opposite. If China were using coal for base load, they wouldn’t need so much more excess capacity. China is switching to using coal on-demand to deal with demand spikes.
This is such a good sign for the environment and I expect that things can only improve from here (especially since, imo, the IEA is underestimating China’s renewables growth 2025+).